Although blood transfusions can cause some infectious diseases in rare cases, such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and AIDS, there have been no reports of leukemia caused by blood transfusions in China or abroad, and there have even been cases of leukemia not being contracted by mistaken transfusions of blood from leukemia patients.
Patients with leukemia have up to 10 more leukemia cells in their bodies when they meet the clinical diagnosis criteria. In contrast, current clinics are using component transfusions, mainly of red cell suspensions or single-collection platelets, 200-400 ml at a time, with mixed leukocytes <10%. These amounts even if all are leukemia cells, the body’s normal immune cells can quickly remove and destroy them, foreign leukemia cells in the body is almost impossible to continue to grow and multiply.
Another possibility is that the blood transfusion transmitted some virus associated with the development of leukemia, such as human T-lymphotropic virus type I, which itself contains retroviral DNA that causes mutations in the patient’s genes. However, the development of leukemia is a multifactorial, multistep cumulative process, so routine blood transfusions, do not increase the risk of leukemia.