On the 26-29 of September 1935, the I International Congress on Blood Transfusion was held in Rome. It initiated the creation of the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT).
About 90 reports were presented at the Rome congress, which was attended by medical representatives from nineteen countries, including the Soviet Union. Discussions covered blood transfusion during war and in infectious diseases, the mechanism of action of transfused blood, new transfusion methods, the science of blood groups, and other issues.
The Soviet delegates prepared two presentations: the former director of the Central Institute of Blood Transfusion (CIBT) (now the National Medical Research Center for Hematology of the Ministry of Health of Russia), A.A. Bogomolets, spoke about the “Stimulating effect of transfused blood,” and the then-current director of Central Institute of Blood Transfusion, A.A. Bagdasarov, delivered a report on “Blood Preservation.”
Blood Preservation
The first transfusion of preserved blood in the USSR was performed in 1930 by D.N. Belenky, and the first preservation solutions were developed at the A.A. Bogdanov Central Institute of Clinical and Experimental Hematology and Blood Transfusion. These were glucose-citrate preservative solutions (formula No. 1 CIBT), which allowed blood to be stored without hemolysis for two weeks. Even before the start of the Great Patriotic War, transfusions of preserved blood had replaced 90% of citrate blood transfusions at the Central Institute of Blood Transfusion.
During the war, when CIBT headed the USSR blood service, work on improving preservation methods continued. From the beginning of 1942, CIBT
researchers began studies related to ensuring the sterility of preserved blood during mass procurement and increasing its shelf life in a fully functional state. A major achievement in ensuring the sterility of procured blood was the development in 1942-1943 of the joint sterilization of glucose-citrate solutions. In 1943, CIBT
produced a new preparation of monosodium citrate, and in the final years of the war, almost all institutes and blood transfusion stations used it for blood procurement.
Another achievement of wartime research was the introduction of antibacterial drugs into preservative solutions. CIBT developed a preservative with the addition of sulfacil and sodium sulfathiazole, while the Leningrad Institute of Blood Transfusion developed one with sulfidine and rivanol. From 1944 onwards, the use of antiseptics for blood preservation became mandatory for the entire national blood service.
As a result of extensive scientific work, CIBT managed to extend the storage period of blood with almost no hemolysis to 30 days. During the war years, methods for preserving red cell mass and red cell suspension in plasma-substituting solutions were also created. The most significant among these was the sucrose-glucose-citrate solution CIBT
No. 8, developed by F.G. Ginsburg, F.R. Vinograd-Finkel, and V.A. Leontovich.
Recognition
CIBT staff also presented the new methodology at the International Congress in Paris in 1937. A.A. Bagdasarov later recalled: “This data was met with great interest and allowed a number of congress participants to call blood preservation the ‘Russian method’.”
The successful blood preservation technique largely became a turning point in the history of hemotransfusiology. World primacy in this matter belongs precisely to Soviet scientists.
In 1969, the XII International Congress on Blood Transfusion was held in Moscow.
