Correspondence

Correction

Low CD4+ Counts in a Study of Transfusion Safety: Correction

N Engl J Med 1993; 328:1128April 15, 1993

Article

To the Editor:

We must call to your readers' attention an error that occurred during the editing of our recent letter to the Editor (Feb. 11 issue).1

In our Table 1, the categories of patients with clotting disorders should have been labeled “treated” (meaning that the patients had received some form of clotting-factor concentrate or blood component) and “untreated” (meaning that the patients had not been given any concentrate or component since 1979). Similarly, the categories of patients with congenital anemias should have been labeled “treated,” to indicate those who had received blood components for their disorder, and “untreated,” to indicate those who had not.

As edited, the table published with our letter may be mistakenly interpreted to mean that the 83 untreated patients with clotting disorders were given clotting-factor concentrate that had undergone no viral inactivation, whereas the 402 treated patients received concentrates that were virally inactivated. None of the patients with congenital anemias were treated with clotting-factor concentrates (as the published version seems to imply). In fact, 242 patients were given blood components, and 80 received no transfusions.

The correctly labeled table is shown here (Table 1Table 1Frequency of Low CD4+ Cell Counts among Subjects without HIV Infection.).

James W. Mosley, M.D.
University of Southern California School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA 90032

for the Transfusion Safety Study Group

1 References

1. 1

   Aledort LM, Operskalski EA, Dietrich SL, et al. Low CD4+ counts in a study of transfusion safety. N Engl J Med 1993;328:441-442
   Full Text | Web of Science | Medline