Does your facility irradiate their own blood? What kind of irradiator do they use? Have you had any problems or concerns? Are there special regulations attached to using an irradiator?

We have a cancer treatment center here, so we do use the accelarator there, at least M-F when they are open.  There are quite a number of regs since you are modifying a product.  In the US, look to AABB and FDA standards.  There will have to be P&Ps for your blood bank and whatever department does the irradiation.

Scott

There are a ton of regulations surrounding radioactive sources, homeland security, state regs, NRC, basically a huge pain in the tuckus, and they are thousands of pounds and usually require reinforced floors!  I have used the linear accelerators in Radiation Oncology at a previous job and that worked really well, but we would occasionally run into "traffic jams" with patient treatment schedules.  X-ray irradiators don't require all of the regulatory ridiculousness, but I have heard (but haven't actually used them) that if you are doing large volumes of irradiating, then you should probably have 2 because the x-ray tubes must be replaced after so many cycles and that can take a week or more.  Also, many of the x-ray irradiators need to be plumbed with a water supply.  Best Theratronics from Canada and JL Shepherd are the 2 companies that I know of for the standard irradiators.  There is a really nice cost comparison paper from Wisconsin that you could read at https://www.lafollette.wisc.edu/images/publications/cba/2013-irradiators.pdf

We use the Rad Source RS 3400 X-Ray irradiator.  We really haven't had any issues with it, and have been extremely happy w/ the Atlanta-based service.  It has a syringe adaptor for neonatal aliquots.  We used to have a Raycell, but it took much longer for service as all parts had to clear Customs.  Irradiating products does guarantee a visit f/ the FDA every two years. The devices are pretty expensive.  We are ~2 hours f/ our blood supplier w/ large oncology & neonatal service, so we felt that it was necessary.  Your LIS will need to be able to make new product labels.