Blood Transfusion Service

Quick Links/Contact Information:
MGH Transfusion Service Page of MGH Laboratory Handbook
MGH Blood Donor Center
MGH Guidelines for the Clinical Use of Blood Components

Overview

The Blood Transfusion Service is an FDA-licensed, full-service blood bank that consists of the Blood Donor Center, the Viral Testing Laboratory, the Transfusion Service, and the Tissue Typing Laboratory.

The Transfusion Service performs routine and specialized compatibility testing as well as the production of specialized components. In addition, the lab supports the transfusion needs of a number of specialty services, including cardiac and vascular surgery, bone marrow and other solid organ transplantation, the Level 3 burn and trauma services, and the neonatal intensive care unit. It also operates an AABB-accredited reference laboratory for the resolution of difficult serological problems.

The MGH Blood Donor Center collects whole blood and platelet pheresis products at the MGH main campus and on the MGH Bloodmobile. Services are also available for autologous blood donation. A number of therapeutic procedures are available, including therapeutic phlebotomy, therapeutic plasma and cytapheresis, peripheral progenitor cell collection, and outpatient transfusion of blood components and plasma derivatives.

The Viral Testing Laboratory performs processing of blood donor units as well as viral testing for anti-HIV 1/2, anti-HTLV-I/II, anti-HCV, HbsAg and HbsAb (qualitative and quantitative).

The Tissue Typing Laboratory is ASHI certified and performs all the testing required for bone marrow and solid organ transplantation services at MGH. Tests include both serologic and DNA-based tissue typing, determination of HLA antibody frequency (PRA) and specificity, lymphocytotoxicity crossmatching, mixed lymphocyte culture assays and monitoring for chimerism and/or bone marrow engraftment. Physician consultation is available for therapeutic phlebotomy and apheresis, transfusion and infusion management, component therapy, use of specialized blood components in target populations, presurgical planning for reduce allogenic blood usage, diagnosis and management of patients refractory to platelet transfusion, serologic problems, autoimmune hemolytic anemias, complications of transfusion, preoperative assessments and compatibility testing of transplant candidates, rejection episodes and indications and management of vascular access devices.