What’s the difference between donating blood or plasma? Know before you give in Kansas City
Odds are you’ve been asked to donate blood before — maybe even from us at The Star recently, as we prepare for a blood drive on Tuesday. And you’ve maybe heard the request for donations even more over the past couple years as Kansas City has faced a blood shortage.
These kinds of blood donations are voluntary, and donors are not compensated. The blood is used for lifesaving transfusions to individuals during surgery and a bunch of other medical situations in hospitals.
Plasma donation is a related form of blood donation that extracts only one component of a person’s blood. It’s a more involved process that takes more time, and has more specific purposes.
Donors can give plasma for free through organizations like the Community Blood Center or the Red Cross, which can be used in transfusions for people who have undergone a severe trauma, burn or shock, or for treating COVID-19 patients.
Donors can also get paid for donating plasma if they give at specified plasma donation centers like CSL Plasma, Octapharma or other similar companies. That plasma is often used by pharmaceutical companies to develop medicines that treat rare or chronic diseases such as different immunodeficiencies, hemophilia, genetic lung disease and other conditions. The U.S. is one of the only countries in the world that pays people for plasma donations.
Understand the different processes before you decide to give.
BLOOD BASICS
Inside your blood are three key components: cells, platelets and plasma. All have essential functions that keep you healthy.
Plasma is the liquid component of our blood. Typically, around 55% of blood is made from plasma, while the other 45% is made up of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Platelets are small colorless cell fragments and make up less than 1% of blood’s volume.
Plasma helps your blood clot, helps maintain your blood pressure and carries electrolytes to your muscles, according to the American Red Cross.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE IN THE DONATING PROCESS?
While regular blood donations like at a blood drive — often called “whole blood donation” — take around 15 minutes, plasma-only donations take around 90 minutes.
Plasma is drawn the same way as blood. A technician sticks a needle in your arm that draws blood from your body. The difference with plasma donation is that the blood goes through a machine that collects only the plasma and sends the red and white blood cells and platelets back to the donor in a saline solution.
Phlebotomists freeze the plasma within 24 hours after it’s drawn from you. Freezing plasma helps preserve its valuable clotting factors.
Plasma can be stored for up to a year, while blood cells can be preserved for up to 42 days.
You can donate plasma more frequently than you can donate blood, sometimes up to two times a week. You can donate blood every eight weeks.
HOW IS PLASMA USED?
If someone donates plasma for free to somewhere like the Community Blood Center or the Red Cross, it can be used in hospitals to treat burn, shock and trauma patients. Patients with severe liver disease, multiple blood clotting factors and other conditions receive plasma transfusions to help their bodies prevent excessive bleeding.
When someone donates plasma at a plasma donation center and is paid, that plasma is often combined with other donors’ plasma. Then, pharmaceutical companies extract the proteins out of that plasma and use it to make medicines to treat a variety of rare diseases.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it could take anywhere from 130 to 1,200 plasma donations to be able to treat one person with medicine made from plasma for a year, including people with primary immunodeficiency and people with hemophilia.
Researchers studying immunodeficiencies have found that the demand for plasma donation is increasing each year.
WHERE CAN I DONATE PLASMA?
Community Blood Center’s eight locations offer plasma donations.
Other places, like CSL Plasma or Octapharma, will pay you for your plasma donation. The payments vary depending on factors such as if it’s your first time donating.
HOW TO SIGN UP FOR THE STAR’S BLOOD DRIVE
This coming Tuesday, Jan. 24, The Star is partnering with the Community Blood Center to hold a blood drive, and we would love for you to participate.
The blood drive will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Crown Center in the first floor conference room at 2460 E. Pershing Road. It’s on the east side of the Crown Center complex across from the coffee shop Spokes.
The Star will provide free parking. You can take a ticket and park in the Crown Center structure, and then get your voucher when you donate.
You can use this link to sign up for a 15-minute appointment.
Of course, donating is completely optional. But, if you have some nerves or hesitation about the process, our reporter Natalie Wallington walks you through step-by-step with this story about her experience donating for the first time recently.
This blood drive is part of The Star’s ongoing efforts to find creative ways to engage with and support our community, and to help connect our readers to some of the issues we report on.
If you have ideas for projects or events you’d like The Star to take on, host or be a part of in our community, please don’t hesitate to let us know. We’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions as we plan more for 2023 at kcq@kcstar.com.
