Medical Question about blood transfusion

[fluidistic]

Althought I understand that a rhesus A+ can donate blood to a rhesus A+, I don't really understand why a woman can donate blood to a man despite the compatibility of the blood group.
As far as I know there are a lot of differences between women and men's blood. For example hormones, the concentration of red cells and platelets, etc.

What about people who need a blood transfusion by week? Do physicians/nurses care about transfusing blood to a patient from a patient of the same sex? Or they don't even look at that?

 

[mgb_phys]

Whole blood is rarely transferred blood is spun down and separated out into red blood cells, plasma etc

Hormones don't last that long in your body - any extra eostrogen will soon be destroyed

 

[fluidistic]

Whole blood is rarely transferred blood is spun down and separated out into red blood cells, plasma etc

Hormones don't last that long in your body - any extra eostrogen will soon be destroyed

I see, thanks.

 

[mgb_phys]

If hormones were a problem - a lot of blood transfusions would be contaminated with epinephrine from somebody sticking a big needle in you!

 

[Sample1]

From the OP: "What about people who need a blood transfusion by week?"

Folks who have thalassemias (heritable blood disorders) needing frequent transfusions are indeed at risk (and carefully monitored) for iron overload which can be damaging to organs (heart, liver, etc.).

A little side-topic trivia:
Canine blood allows dogs to receive one "free" transfusion without crossmatching because they don't have naturally occurring antibodies against all the other canine blood types. After the first transfusion, however, dogs can develop those antibodies and must be crossmatched thereafter. Cats do have antibodies against the blood types they are lacking and should be carefully matched and transfused from the start. And then there are the multiple blood types of horses...:-j