Articles

Canadian Blood Services takes the safety of the blood supply very seriously and we remain focused on the identification of potential threats to the blood supply whether they are blood borne pathogens or issues that may jeopardize the sufficiency of the supply of blood and blood products needed by patients.

Description and Incidence

Transfusion-Related Acute Lung Injury (TRALI) is a syndrome characterized by acute respiratory distress following transfusion. All plasma-containing blood products have been implicated including rare reports of IVIG and cryoprecipitate. It is a rare complication of allogeneic blood transfusion but the incidence has not been well established due to difficulty in defining the syndrome and to variable reporting mechanisms worldwide. Various studies have estimated the overall frequency of TRALI to be between 1/1,120 and 1/57,810 units transfused. However, there is wide discrepancy in the literature with the reported frequency is as low as 1/557,000 RBC units and as high as 1/432 platelet units.