The ethical dilemma of granulocyte transfusions

Abstract

Granulocyte transfusions have been administered to patients with life-threatening infections for more than five decades. However, to what extent this should be the case is far from established. On the one hand, the clinical effects of these transfusions are difficult to prove in clinical studies, and the donors of granulocytes may be exposed to certain risks. On the other hand, clinical experience seems to support the idea that granulocyte transfusions do play an important role for severely ill patients, and the donors are primarily motivated by altruistic reasons. In this paper, we first discuss the ethical issues that arise from the fact that there is a conflict between clinical experience and the results from the attempts to perform randomized control trials, and second, the risk/benefit assessment that has to be made between two different parties, namely the recipient and the donor of granulocyte transfusions.