Does blood type matter when donating white blood cells?
Yes blood type does matter. Compatibility testing has to be done if the product given has more than 2mL of rbc’s in it. To the previous poster: you can donate white blood cells through leukapheresis. Graft-versus-host-disease is a very real possibility due to the fact that you can’t entirely separate the lymphocytes from the granulocytes, therefore to minimize the risk of GVHD, the product is irradiated which keeps the granulocytes viable but renders the lymphocytes impotent.
