Use of red blood cells concentrates at the General Hospital of Mexico

Background

Blood transfusion is a valuable therapeutic tool for massive bleeding in spite of inherent risks and makes the difference between life and death. Rational use of blood components and particularly of red blood cells concentrates (RBC) request for surgery could minimize the transfusional reactions and financial burden for blood banks.

Objective

To know the transfusion practice and the relationship between the request and use of RBC in programmed surgeries at the General Hospital of Mexico.

Materials and methods

A retrospective study was conducted and data analysis based in the number of RBC units required from the blood bank were compared with the number of RBC units transfused. Medical records, surgical notes, anesthesia worksheets, nursing and laboratory reports from a 6 months period, were reviewed.

Results

During the studied period, 354 RBC were requested from the blood bank from different surgical specialties; with a total of 680 units. From these only 63 (9.2%) were transfused vs 617 (90.7%) that were not used and were returned to the blood bank.

Conclusions

RBC requests were excessive compared to the real demand; this represents inadequate blood requests and elevated costs for the blood bank and the health system. There is a need to promote strategies through the institutional Transfusion Medicine Committee.