Cancer and blood - was Re: Active surveillance now acceptable - who knew?

[Guest guest]

wrote:

....

> There has been a recurring question if one can get HIV from a

> mosquito ( a vampire of sorts in it's own way) that has sucked

> blood of someone stricken with HIV. The answer from the medical

> profession and NIH has always been an authorative ''no''. Yet I

> have never known of any study that has proven this to be the

> case. Maybe there is such a study but I don't know of any. What

> you don't know really can hurt you.

There have indeed been intensive and authoritative studies. The

answer is No, you can't get HIV from a mosquito. See:

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/qa/transmission.htm

The NIH Clinical Center has this statement in their FAQ for blood

donors:

---

Can I donate if I have had cancer?

You can donate if you had skin cancer (basal cell or squamous

cell) or cervical cancer in situ and the surgical site is

completely healed. If you had another type of cancer, you can

donate two years after the date of surgery or other

definitive therapy, as long as your doctor informs you that

there is no evidence of persistent or recurrent cancer. You

are permanently deferred if you had leukemia or lymphoma.

---

See: http://www.cc.nih.gov/blooddonor/can_i_donate.html#cancer

The statement doesn't say which of the bans on cancer patients

donating blood are for the protection of the patient and which

are for the protection of the donor.

In _theory_, cancer is not a communicable disease that could be

transmitted by blood donation. In _theory_, any circulating

tumor cells in the blood of the donor will be recognized as

foreign by the recipient's immune system and killed. However,

one has to ask whether patients with compromised immune systems

are at risk, etc.

However, even assuming that all CTCs are killed, donation may or

may not be safe for the recipient depending on what drugs or

cancer by-products might be in the blood of the donor.

Alan