Blood transfusion practices in a tertiary care center in Northern India

BACKGROUND: Blood transfusion plays vital roles in the medical and surgical practice. To achieve optimum use of blood, transfusion has to be appropriate and judicious consuming minimal resources and manpower. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the pattern of blood transfusion requests and utilization with the aim of determining transfusion practice. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Blood request forms and cross-match worksheets at the blood bank were analyzed over a 6-month period. Numbers of requisitions, blood units cross-matched, issued out, transfused, and nontransfused were calculated. Nonusage probability (NUP) and the cross-match to transfusion ratio (CTR) for each clinical unit were computed. RESULTS: Two thousand two hundred and sixty-eight units of blood were cross-matched for 1487 patient's transfusion requests, out of which only 1455 (64.2%) were transfused giving a total CTR of 1.6 for the hospital. The CTR for the various clinical units were: Obstetrics and gynecology (O and G) 2.7, surgery 2.1, orthopedics 1.9, medicine 1.1, pediatrics 1, and oncology 1. CONCLUSIONS: The overall CTR (1.6) of the hospital was within the optimal range except for the O and G and surgery department which were having very high NUP and CTR indicating their suboptimal transfusion practices. Introducing revised transfusion guidelines, maximum surgical blood ordering schedule and type, screen, save, and abbreviated cross-match method can help toward adequate requisition and utilization of blood thereby reducing wastage of resources, time, and manpower.