Dear Members,

On March 22, 2010, the new CSA Standards for Blood and Blood Components Z902-10 was published.  CSA Z902-04 has now been withdrawn.

The CSTM Standards committee has completed a review of the new CSA standard and will be publishing version 3 of the CSTM Standards for Hospital Transfusion Services to be in compliance with CSA Z902-10.  Although many of the superscripts in CSTM Standards ver2 specifically relating to Z902-04 are no longer accurate for Z902-10, it is felt that CSTM Standards ver2 is still compliant with all major clauses.

The Standards committee has identified two major changes in Z902-10 that we would like to bring to your attention:

1. Z902-10 now refers to both blood components AND blood products - CSTM has always referred to both; therefore the existing CSTM standard is compliant with all major new CSA clauses referencing blood products.

2. Z902-10 has a 5 day outdate for thawed plasma components.  It is our understanding that even though CSA has made this change, there have been no Canadian validation studies that we are aware of, nor has the manufacturer / supplier made changes to their Circular of Information. This issue will be added to the agenda of the upcoming AGM in Vancouver on May 14th.

The CSTM Standards committee is working diligently to complete ver3 of the CSTM Standards with a target date of release for public review by the Fall of this year and publication in the Spring of 2011.

Submitted respectively on behalf of the CSTM Standards Committee,

Kathleen Eckert, Chair