Value of Routine Inquiry about Blood Donation

To the Editor: Physicians often inquire about blood transfusion in obtaining a patient's medical history. We suggest the addition of a complementary question: "Have you ever donated blood?" An affirmative response instantly conveys a wealth of useful medical data. The physician knows that when such patients last donated blood they declared themselves free of the chief symptoms of chronic infection or neoplasm (fatigue, weight loss, lymphadenopathy, and night sweats, for example) and acute infection. For their blood to have been accepted, their vital signs and hematocrits or hemoglobin concentrations must have been normal. Unless they were later notified otherwise, tests . . .