The International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT), is a scientific society, founded in 1935, which aims to promote the study of blood transfusion, and to spread the know-how about the manner in which blood transfusion medicine and science best can serve the patient's interests. The society's central office is in Amsterdam, and there are around 1700 members in 97 countries. Currently, the President is Dr. Silvano Wendel.
The Society organizes an international congress every other even year and two regional congresses in odd years, one in Europe and one in Asia. ISBT advocates standardisation and harmonisation in the field of blood transfusion. The other major impact on the transfusion community is the classification of various Human blood group systems under a common nomenclature. ISBT's coordination also extends to obtaining donors with rare antigens, a process that often involves international searches, and a common terminology is critical to that process.
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