There is no comprehensive report on the donor reaction rate among blood donors in South Korea. We attempted to analyze the patterns and rates of immediate blood donor reactions and the current status of the reporting system in our country.

Immediate donor reaction rate was defined as the number of donor reaction cases in 10,000 donations during or immediately after donation. We retrospectively analyzed the 4,835,499 donations collected in 2 yr (2008 and 2009) at the Korean Red Cross Blood Center. The data presented are the average data of the 2 yr.

The overall donor reaction rate was 8.7. The rate for subcutaneous bleeding, vasovagal reaction, and nerve injury was 4.1, 4.0, and 0.1, respectively. For citrate reaction, which occurred among apheresis donations, the donor reaction rate was 0.4. The overall reaction rates among male and female donors were 6.0 and 16.2, respectively. The rates were highest in teenagers (12.0) and lowest in those in their forties (4.3). The most frequent reaction in male donors was subcutaneous bleeding (3.3); that in female donors was vasovagal reaction (8.9).

The donor reaction rate of the study was lower than that of other countries or that of domestic prospective studies by a local blood center. These data suggested that the reporting system for blood donor reactions in Korean donors is not active, and that national standards and the continuing education of blood-collection personnel regarding donor reactions should be established to ensure reliable data collection.