The Netherlands’ haemovigilance scheme has estimated that up to half of all serious transfusion reactions are preventable by methods that are currently available.

Table 4.4 hows a classification of adverse transfusion reactions. This distinguishes (a) reactions that are due to an intrinsic quality defect in the blood component supplied (e.g. undetected hepatitis B infectivity) from (b) reactions that may result from a failure to select the correct product (e.g. irradiated components for patient at risk of GvHD) and (c) reactions, such as anaphylaxis or TRALI that may impossible to predict.