Systematic review protocol for estimation of blood concentration of lead, mercury and cadmium in blood donors

Lead, mercury and cadmium are a serious threat to people. Since blood products are considered as hidden and potential sources of exposure to these heavy metals, systematic review of their concentration in blood donors helps make a decision about the necessity of such a blood donor screening. Therefore, the current protocol has been prepared with the aim of describing the method and steps of such a relevant systematic review.

English keywords "blood donor", Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Pb, Hg, Cd will be searched online in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and ProQuest databases. After screening and selection of relevant articles by two referees, the necessary information will be extracted. If more than 5 primary studies are obtained, meta-analysis will be performed. The heterogeneity among studies will be evaluated by Cochran Q and I2 statistics. Fixed effects model or random effects model will be used to pool the means. Statistical analysis will be performed by meta package in R software.

This systematic review is ongoing and will be completed by March 19, 2024.

Conclusions :

This protocol has been prepared to describe the steps of conducting a systematic review of studies that have measured the blood concentration of lead, mercury and cadmium in blood donors with the aim of making a decision about the necessity of such a blood donor screening to obtain safer products and prevent the exposure of recipients.