Reevaluating Immunization Delays Post Red Blood Cell Transfusion
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract BACKGROUND Current Canadian guidelines recommend to delay the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) and varicella live attenuated vaccines by 6 months following transfusion of unwashed red blood cells (RBC) due to potential interference by serum antibodies. Thus, patients chronically transfused with RBC commonly suffer from a delay or absence of MMR and varicella vaccination. Over the last decades, not only has RBC handling changed, but also fewer blood donors have had natural mumps, measles and rubella infections, resulting in lower blood antibody levels. The recommendations may thus be unfounded and outdated, and prevent valuable vaccination opportunities for children with frequent blood transfusions. OBJECTIVES The primary aim of this project was to determine MMR vaccination immunogenicity in patients chronically transfused with RBC. DESIGN/METHODS Medical charts were reviewed for vaccination and transfusion histories. MMR-specific antibodies were quantified in 25 paediatric patients who received both doses of the MMR vaccine at 12 and 18 months of age while they were on a chronic RBC transfusion program for sickle cell disease, B-thalassemia major, Diamond-Blackfan anemia or pyruvate kinase deficiency. There was no formal control group; long-term immunity rates in the literature are ≥90% for all MMR components. RESULTS Table 1 shows immunogenicity to MMR vaccine components. Delays between vaccination and serology testing averaged 5.9 years (0.3 to 15.8 years). CONCLUSION To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study designed to measure the effect of RBC transfusions on MMR vaccine immunogenicity. Although lower than the rates reported in the literature, the results suggest a high rate of immunogenicity to each component of the MMR vaccine in chronically transfused patients. Weighing the risks and benefits of disease prevention in a highly vulnerable population, a reevaluation of immunization delays post RBC transfusions is called for.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.009 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".