Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Stephen Courtney — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 17:06:46 GMT

I don't see how a neoplastic stem cell from one individual will 'transplant' to another without serious immunosuppression, that in itself can cause cancer...otherwise why all the rigmarole with bone marrow transplants? The only 'transplantable' tumour I am aware of is TVT ( Canine transmissible venereal tumour) which is indeed transplanted between dogs during close contact of the passionate variety.

seems silly to me but i guess it depends on the reason for the polycythaemia in the first place, there might be other nasty things floating around in there!

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

mariette asselbergs — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 12:56:07 GMT

Thanks sofar everybody for comments. We are still in the process of checking out the possible cause of this polycytaemia. But the suggestion to use it in life threatening cases with not long survival prognosis is of course a good one. I did have a case of a bleeding spleen from confirmed haemangiosarcoma and it lived for 14 months afterwards a good life, then died of metastases. (Well. PTS rather).

Since we collect the blood in official blood bags, we might as well keep it in the fridge just in case.

Informed consent and all that......

And I'll contact the pet blood bank, see what they say.

Mariette

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Sammy82 — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 16:46:44 GMT

In this case I would advise euth while still under, but in the end it is the owner's decision. I did not have a case yet where the owner said no to letting their dog go. I discuss the possibility of secondaries/inoperable tumour and get consent for euth in this case beforehand, but still phone the owner before putting the dog to sleep.

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:25:24 GMT

Do you let them wake up even if they have visible metastases?

Wynne

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:22:49 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]many haemangiosarcs are dead of metastases within a year anyway[/quote]Blimey that's optimistic, I'd say 6 weeks to 3 months max.

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:14:14 GMT

Especially as even if no 2ys visible, many haemangiosarcs are dead of metastases within a year anyway!

Wynne

(But agreed, I don't really know)

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Martin Atkinson — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:11:29 GMT

I would say that if is all you have to perform an emergency life saving transfusion on a patient that was going to die anyway from a ruptured splenic haemangiosarcoma then it really has nothing to lose if by a remote chance it 'catches' neoplastic polycytaemia. If you were going to throw it anyway then it does no harm to keep it just in case apart from the cost of the bags which aren't cheap.

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Andrew Kent — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 14:51:22 GMT

It's true that nobody knows the real risk of this, however as others have suggested primary polycythemia (polycythemia vera) is a myeloproliferative disease which has been reported occasionally to progress to leukaemia. As such it wouldn't be advised to use the blood for donation.

In certain causes of secondary polycythemia common sense suggests that it should be ok.

Andy

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Hannah Wynne Richards — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 13:42:32 GMT

Deafening silence from the Specialists (unless they're all on holidays) , and contradictory statements from those with human experience. I think that means nobody knows!

Wynne

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Rebecca Marchewka — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 09:29:12 GMT

My father has polycythaemia and was told his blood could not be used.

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Joyce Whitehead — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 08:55:45 GMT

I'm not by any means an expert, but would agree that I think it depends on the reason for the polycythemia. We had a young lab a few years ago with a reverse shunting PDA, which led her to have polycythemia. We took blood around every 3-4 weeks to control this, and kept the blood. Of course Sod's law being as it is, we only required one unit if it, but used it in a dog with a ruptured spleen, and had no problems. Obviously we only kept it for recommended times in the fridge. And in standard blood collection bags. I would think the blood bank people could probably advise?

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Birte Toft — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 23:38:19 GMT

[quote user="Stephen Courtney"]

I had a human friend with the same problem. His 'treatment' was regular blood donation. Don't see why it would be a problem - in human medicine they usually turn the donation into packed red cells - and i think they tend to the same here too?

[/quote] Interesting, I also had a human friend with polycythaemia. He was told his blood would not be used because his condition was considered pre-neoplastic and there was a remote chance of transmitting neoplastic cells. Apart from the blood letting, the only medical treatment he was on was aspirin, and he was otherwise in good health.

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Charlotte Marshall — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 22:07:15 GMT

Might depend why your dog is polcythaemic. I would assume if it was due to a kidney tumour not but if it was primary maybe.

Re: Can dogs with polycytaemia be blood donors?

Stephen Courtney — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 21:59:32 GMT