Repository of blood samples from recipients of red blood cell transfusions in France

In a recent issue of TRANSFUSION, Allain and Busch1 described donation archives and prospective repositories of blood samples from blood donors and transfusion recipients that exist in the United States and Europe. They described repositories in three European countries (United Kingdom, Italy, and the Netherlands), but did not include the repository of blood samples from recipients of red blood cells (RBCs) in France. Financially supported and initiated in 1987 by the Institut National de Transfusion Sanguine (Paris, France), this repository contains more than 30,000 blood samples from patients who were selected because of chronic RBC transfusions (patients with thalassemia, sickle cell disease, and myelodysplasia) and, thus, at increased risk for transfusion-transmitted infections. After obtaining recipients' informed consent for long-term storage and testing, several milliliters of serum and plasma, distributed in at least 5 aliquots of 1 mL, are frozen, stored indefinitely, and used for scientific research only. The data obtained from studies with this repository have supported the publication of 29 original reports in peer-reviewed journals during 1987 through 2005. Of the five most recently published journal articles, three appeared in TRANSFUSION.2-6 This French repository is, after the HEART study described by Allain and Busch,1 the oldest (1987), of longest duration (20 years and ongoing), and one that has generated the greatest number of publications. Since 2002, paired donor-recipient blood samples have been aliquoted and frozen in the same conditions. We believe that it is important to report the existence of all repositories that are available to investigators in the scientific community. Because France is one of the two countries most impacted by the epidemic of variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (vCJD), this recipient repository has the potential for proving its usefulness (when specific assays become available) for determining the prevalence of vCJD prion infection and the extent of transmission via blood transfusion. As a minimum, these long-term repositories of blood samples from transfusion recipients will provide important data documenting the emergence of any new blood-borne infectious agents in the recipient population.