Infectious Disease Markers among Directed and Volunteer Blood Donors in Korea

Abstract

Most reports from Western countries are discouraging the establishment of direct donation programs since little evidence exists that this approach improves the safety of blood transfusion. However, the infectious disease marker frequencies vary from one region to another and not much is known about the figures in less individualized, and more culturally uniform societies. The authors compared the frequency of infectious disease markers among 14,253 directed and 1,228,132 volunteer blood donors in Korea. The frequency of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) was higher in volunteer donors while the frequency of elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and VORL was higher in directed donorslp-Dfl'l). Our data suggest that even in a less individualized society where people are more open to exchange their medical and personal information, directed donation does not confer significant benefit in the prevention of transfusion-transmitted diseases.