International Society of Blood Transfusion

The International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT), is a scientific society, founded in 1935, which aims to promote the study of blood transfusion, and to spread the know-how about the manner in which blood transfusion medicine and science best can serve the patient's interests. The society's central office is in Amsterdam, and there are around 1700 members in 97 countries. Currently, the President is Dr. Silvano Wendel.

The Society organizes every other even year an international congress and in odd years two regional congresses, one in Europe and one in Asia. ISBT advocates standardisation and harmonisation in the field of blood transfusion. The other major impact on the transfusion community is the classification of various Human blood group systems under a common nomenclature. ISBT's coordination also extends to obtaining donors with rare antigens, a process that often involves international searches, and a common terminology is critical to that process.

External links

• ISBT website
• Vox Sanguinis
• ISBT 128 Standardized bar coding
• Classification of blood group systems

See also

• World Health Organization
• AABB
• Transfusion