How Does Donating Plasma Help People? The Life-Saving Impact of Your Donation
Your plasma donation helps save lives every day. Plasma-derived medicines treat people with rare immune deficiencies, hemophilia, and liver disease. In hospitals, plasma helps trauma victims, burn patients, and surgical patients survive life-threatening situations. And in research labs, plasma advances the development of new vaccines and treatments.
The thing is, plasma can’t be made in a lab. It has to come from donors. That’s where people like you come in. Your donation makes a real difference.
Before we talk about how donating plasma helps people and who plasma donation helps, let’s cover what it is and what it does for the body.
What is plasma?
Plasma is a component of blood. It actually makes up the majority of our total blood volume.
Blood also contains red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Plasma’s job is to suspend and help transport the other parts of blood through the body. It moves antibodies, nutrients, and waste through the body, too.
Blood is famously red. Plasma is a clear yellow. It’s approximately 92% water. It also contains proteins that play important roles in our blood, such as helping it clot to stop bleeding. The proteins in plasma are vital for medical therapies as well.
Who does plasma donation help?
After you donate, plasma is used to create medical therapies that help change and save people’s lives. Here are three common examples.
Plasma creates life-saving medicines.
Medications made with plasma help fight infection, enable blood clotting, help keep blood vessels healthy, and more.
Plasma is commonly used in medicines that help treat rare, life-threatening conditions. These diseases include immune deficiencies, autoimmune disorders, hemophilia (the inability of blood to clot), and liver disease, among others. For many people, plasma-based medicines are the only option for treatment.
Plasma is often used to treat people in hospitals and emergency rooms.
In hospitals, people who need plasma receive it through direct transfusion, which means the plasma is transfused into the bloodstream. There are a few situations when a person may need plasma by direct transfusion.
Emergency medicalproviders use direct plasma transfusions to treat people suffering from trauma, shock, and severe burns. Physicians and surgeons use plasma transfusions to stop and manage severe bleeding during surgeries and childbirth. And disaster response teams transfer plasma into people who quickly lose blood during accidents and major disasters.
In every one of these scenarios, plasma can be life-saving.
Plasma is used for medical research and diagnostics.
Plasma is used in research to study a variety of diseases. Plasma is also used to develop new vaccines and medications. Additionally, it’s essential for medical research and diagnostic kits to screen for and diagnose different diseases.
Researchers need a large quantity of plasma to do their work, and every donation makes a difference.
Helping to save a life through medical treatment is a team effort. As a donor, you can make an impact in one of the ways we mentioned—or all of the above. No matter what, it’s amazing!
Find a donation center near you.
FAQs
How does donating plasma help people?
Plasma creates medicines for rare diseases, treats trauma patients, and advances medical research.
Who benefits from plasma donation?
People with immune deficiencies, hemophilia, burn victims, surgical patients, and research participants.
How does plasma save lives?
Plasma-derived medicines are the only treatment option for many life-threatening conditions.
