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Objectives: Over 50 million confirmed cases and 1.5 million fatalities worldwide have been linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers have used convalescent plasma (CP) from recovered patients, which includes neutralizing antibodies, to develop therapeutics for virus neutralization and prevention. This study assessed the effectiveness of CP using several clinical and laboratory variables. Methods: The intervention group received two doses of CP on the day of hospitalization, while the control group received standard care. Clinical and analytical data were documented and evaluated before plasma therapy and on the third and fifth days after therapy. The results were measured in the patient's blood using the ELISA method. Results: The present study showed that the ICU hospitalization times for the control and CP groups were similar, with a slightly lower mortality rate in the CP group (6.2% vs. 8.2%, p > 0.05). There was no significant association between COVID-19 and clinical factors such as blood pressure, heart rate (HR), respiration rate (RR), and temperature. The blood serum urea, serum LDH, ALT, PTT, PLT, and IL-6 were significantly higher in the CP group than in the control group (p <0.05). Our results indicated that there was no difference in blood pH, PO2, HCO3, ESR, WBC counts, serum troponin, Na, AST, CRP, D-dimer, and PT between patients in the CP and control groups. Conclusion: Overall, in certain instances, CP therapy may help individuals with COVID-19 recover. In general, additional research is required to determine the efficacy of plasma treatment in COVID-19 patient care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) is a pivotal inhibitory checkpoint ligand known to induce T-cell exhaustion via interaction with the programmed death-1 (PD-1) receptor. Beyond this, PD-L1's intrinsic signaling pathways within cancer cells warrant further exploration. This study aims to elucidate the effect of PD-L1 stimulation on the proliferation, survival, and apoptosis of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cell lines. Two human AML cell lines, HL-60 and THP-1 were cultured and treated with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) to induce PD-L1overexpression. Post-treatment PD-L1 expression was confirmed via flow cytometry. Subsequently, cell surface PD-L1 was stimulated using a recombinant PD-1, 24 hours post-PMA treatment. The expression alterations in pivotal genes including BCL2, MKI67, BAX, and CASP3 were monitored using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction 24 and 48 hours post-treatment. Additionally, annexin-V through flow cytometry. Findings reveal that PD-L1 stimulation augments AML cell proliferation and survival by enhancing MKI67 and BCL2 expressions while concurrently inhibiting cell apoptosis due to decreased BAX and CASP3 expression following PD-L1 stimulation. Notably, stimulated cells expressed exhibited reduced annexin-V compared to control cells. This study underscores that PD-L1 stimulation fosters AML cell proliferation and survival while impeding cell apoptosis. The results hold potential implications for targeting PD-L1 in AML treatment strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some risk causes may be associated with the severity of COVID-19. The central host-pathogen factors might affect infection are human receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2), and SARS-CoV-2 surface spike (S)-protein. The main purpose of this study was to determine the differences in the expression the metalloproteinases-2 (MMP-2), MMP-9, ACE2, and TMPRSS2 genes and their correlation with lymphopenia in the mild and severe types of the COVID-19 patients. Eighty-eight patients, aged 36 to 60 years old with the mild (n=44) and severe (n=44) types of COVID-19 were enrolled. Total RNA was isolated from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). The changes of MMP-2, MMP-9, ACE2 and TMPRSS2 gene expression in PBMCs from mild and severe COVID-19 patients were examined by the real time-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assay and, compared between the groups. Data were collected from May 2021 to March 2022. The mean age of the patients in both groups was 48 (interquartile range, 36–60), and there were no appreciable differences in age or gender distribution between the two groups. The present study showed that a significant increase in the expression of ACE2, TMPRSS2, MMP-2, and MMP-9 genes in the severe type of the COVID-19 patients compared, to the mild type of the COVID-19 patients. Overall, it suggests the expression levels of these genes on the PBMC surface in the immune system are susceptible to infection by SARS-COV-2 and therefore could potentially predict the patients’ outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Over the past decades, interest in establishing a National Rare Donor Program has increased significantly worldwide. The experience of developing countries, however, is still limited. Rare blood is defined as a blood group found in a 1000- 5000 population and donor has an absence of a high-prevalence antigen, or the absence of multiple common antigens. Iranian national rare donor program was established in 2009. This paper reports the experiences and challenges of establishing a national rare donor program in Iran. Materials and Methods: This program provides services to all medical centers that need rare units. The main role of rare donor program is to maintain information of rare donors that are identified at the immunohematology reference laboratory located in Tehran. Good manufacturing practices and standard operating procedures are utilized to all activity. The IRL secures frozen blood to make them available when rare blood is required. Results: As many as 1000 different types of rare donors have been identified in Iran, including several individuals whose blood group had developed clinically significant allo-antibodies. In addition to routine donors' personally identifiable information such as addresses and telephone numbers, we also access to the contact information of their close relatives or friends for emergency situation. Contact data are kept up to date at least twice annually. IRL staff are ready to provide services to patients with rare blood types, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. To date, more than 80 donors with very rare blood group are listed on the IRL rare donor database in 31 centers. Current practice at IRL is to screen the first and second-degree relatives of any patient found to have a rare blood type for a matching blood donor. Iranian blood services need to establish special departments to provide rare blood RBCs and technical assistance for a quicker and more efficient responses to patients and request of their medical staff for blood transfusion. To achieve this aim, there were several challenges, including situation analysis and justification of the program, allocation of financial support by top managers, engineering and technical maintenance, facility and environmental services, employee awareness and communication between blood centers, technologist training in advanced immunohematology. Conclusion: The results of this survey are encouraging and indicate that the information and database for rare donors will provide services to patients with very difficult and complex serology test results requiring rare blood transfusion. The experience of IRL may be helpful for other transfusion centers in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Some of the red cell storage lesions (RCSLs) take place during red blood cell (RBC) storage and may reduce the function of these cells dramatically, which mostly caused by residual leucocytes in blood components. This study was planned to observe the biochemical and hematological changes in pre-storage leukoreduced RBC (LR-RBC) compared with unfiltered RBC during in vitro storage. Materials and Methods: Ten unit RBCs were collected, processed and stored according to Iranian standard operating procedure (SOP) of Iranian Blood Transfusion Organization (IBTO). Every unit was split into two equal parts, unfiltered RBC and LR-RBC. Samples were collected and tested on weeks of storage. Biochemical parameters such as lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), lactate concentration and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) enzyme activity were measured by auto-analyzer. In addition, hematology analyzer was used to monitor the change of RBC indices such as (MCV), (MCH) and (MCHC). Results: In this study, both groups showed progressive increase of LDH and lactate levels, and also G6PD activity decreased during storage. Mean of LDH and lactate in unfiltered RBC was significantly increased compared with LR-RBC during all days of storage (p< 0.05). There was statically significant decrease in the G6PD enzyme activity between the two groups and weeks of storage (p< 0.05). However, the RBC indices remained within the expected levels in both groups. Conclusion: LR-RBC and RBC both exhibited RCSL during storage, but LR-RBC is effective in reducing Red cell storage lesion (RCSL) and also improves the quality of stored red blood cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Alloimmunization is a reaction of the immune system to foreign antigens. For prevention of alloantibody formation, performing of type and screen test is necessary on a patient's blood specimen as part of pre-transfusion testing. Materials and method: In this cross-sectional study, type and screen test done for 1420 patients with elective surgery for detection of alloantibody in Imam Khomeini hospital in Ardabil. Results: Prevalence of alloantibody in this population was 0.92% (13 patients) and 99.2% (1407 patients) showed no alloantibody in their serum. The most prevalent alloantibody was anti-K, anti-E and anti-c. No significant relationship observed between sex and alloimmunization rate. Conclusion: performance of type and screen test play an important role in reducing the rate of alloimmunization, and also, could reduce the demands for blood reservation in hospital blood banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]