Talking Transfusion: The Transfusion Evidence Round-Up Podcast
Sep 30, 2026 · 10 min · 4 segments
**Red blood cell transfusion to treat or prevent complications in sickle cell disease: an overview of Cochrane reviews** In this episode, Lise Estcourt talks to Catherine Kimber about her recently…
Lise EstcourtGuestCatherine KimberHostWhat do you think will be the impact of this review and what do you think will happen next?
I'm hoping, well, I think the good thing that has happened more recently is that people are recognising the importance of sickle cell disease and it's not being, it's being seen as a condition that it needs to have research time and funding focused on it.
And a good example of that is that recently there's been funding from the UK government to increase access to automated bed cell exchanges for patients who need them so that there's actually resources going into improving care for patients.
But we also need resources on the research side so that we can actually use that funding more effectively.
And I think we need to ensure that any future trials we do are kind of co-developed with patients because it's a key thing to ensure that we have got the buy-in from the community, from the sickle cell societies, et cetera, to ensure that it's something that they want answered and that we're working with them to design a trial.
and also thinking of ways that we can do it more effectively so using trials that have collect you use routinely collected data and also thinking of trial emulation as well um so using kind of big data sets that we're now developing um to be able to assess a trial without actually doing a trial itself because trials are very expensive and take many, many years.
I think this patient community has had a lack of research for a very long period of time.
So things that can provide answers quicker would be a really good thing as well.
So what do you think that people with sickle cell disease at the moment, how are they going to experience the impact of this review? Do you think that there will be changes to people's care as a result of this review?
I, I don't think there's going to be changes to their care immediately, because it's highlighting the lack of evidence.
But I think that if this review, I hope this overview will highlight to grant bodies and others that we really need to get better evidence.
And I'm hoping because also red cell transfusions are a limited resource, we rely on volunteers to donate their blood.
And so it's a limited resource that we actually invest the research funds to actually find when we need to use it and when we don't.
What do you think will be the impact of this review and what do you think will happen next?
I'm hoping, well, I think the good thing that has happened more recently is that people are recognising the importance of sickle cell disease and it's not being, it's being seen as a condition that it needs to have research time and funding focused on it.
And a good example of that is that recently there's been funding from the UK government to increase access to automated bed cell exchanges for patients who need them so that there's actually resources going into improving care for patients.
But we also need resources on the research side so that we can actually use that funding more effectively.
And I think we need to ensure that any future trials we do are kind of co-developed with patients because it's a key thing to ensure that we have got the buy-in from the community, from the sickle cell societies, et cetera, to ensure that it's something that they want answered and that we're working with them to design a trial.
and also thinking of ways that we can do it more effectively so using trials that have collect you use routinely collected data and also thinking of trial emulation as well um so using kind of big data sets that we're now developing um to be able to assess a trial without actually doing a trial itself because trials are very expensive and take many, many years.
I think this patient community has had a lack of research for a very long period of time.
So things that can provide answers quicker would be a really good thing as well.
So what do you think that people with sickle cell disease at the moment, how are they going to experience the impact of this review? Do you think that there will be changes to people's care as a result of this review?
I, I don't think there's going to be changes to their care immediately, because it's highlighting the lack of evidence.
But I think that if this review, I hope this overview will highlight to grant bodies and others that we really need to get better evidence.
And I'm hoping because also red cell transfusions are a limited resource, we rely on volunteers to donate their blood.
And so it's a limited resource that we actually invest the research funds to actually find when we need to use it and when we don't.
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