Analysis of blood donor deferral characteristics in Delhi, India.

Blood donors are deferred from donating blood for several reasons, either permanently or temporarily. Losses related to disease marker rates are well established. Donor and donation losses for other reasons, however, have not been extensively quantified. This study quantified the rate of and reasons for donor deferral among Delhi donors. A retrospective study was conducted by reviewing the deferral donor records from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2008. The percentage of deferred donors was 9% with majority of them (91.0%) being deferred for temporary reasons. Anemia was the most frequent cause for donor rejection (32.8%). Permanent deferral accounted for 9.1% with hypertension being the most common cause (29.4%) in this category.