The BEST Working Party of the International Society of Blood Transfusion: an international effort to improve the quality of blood components

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Abstract
The Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) Working Party of the International Society of Blood Transfusion was formed with the aim of improving the quality and safety of blood components. An outline of the aims, working methodology, and results after the first 4 years of activity of the BEST Working Party is presented. Seven studies have been performed, evaluating techniques for counting residual white cells in white cell-reduced red cells, platelet quality control, and cellular harvests in blood components prepared with different methods. Areas of possible interest in the near future include stem cells, platelet crossmatching, and virus inactivation of blood components. An important BEST feature is the sharing of information gathered through collections of large sets of data from routine settings, so as to produce a reliable picture of the "real world." Such information could prove useful to those in charge of developing recommendations and guidelines.