The sex of a red blood cell donor has no effect on the survival of a transfusion recipient, data suggest.
In a randomized clinical trial with almost 9000 patients, the adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of death among recipients of female donors' blood, compared with recipients of male donors' blood, was 0.98. The data contradict the finding of previous observational studies that donor sex is associated with recipient outcomes.
Dr Dean Fergusson
"The key finding was that we actually had a null result," study author Dean Fergusson, MD, PhD, senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in Canada, told Medscape Medical News. "We went in thinking that male donor blood would confer a benefit over female donor blood, and we found that there's absolutely no difference between the donor sexes on recipient outcomes — mortality and other major secondary outcomes," Fergusson added.
The study was published April 13 in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Differences "Don't Matter"
A 2015 article from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute identified a potential effect of donor sex on transfusion recipient survival. Since then, several observational studies have suggested that donor sex may influence survival after transfusion. This research includes two large studies, one from Canadaand one from
