A Study on Pattern of Utlisation of Blood and its Components in a Teaching Hospital

Blood transfusion is a vital part of present health care system. If used precisely, blood transfusion can improve patient health status and can reduce death rate. Like other drug, blood transfusion may cause short-term and long-term complications like transfusion reactions and transmit infections such as HIV, hepatitis virus, syphilis etc. The main aim was to study the pattern of utilization of blood and its components in a teaching hospital. Hence, a retrospective study was carried out at the blood bank of a teaching hospital of Telangana District. The total number of blood and its components issued from our blood bank in a year were 7638 units. Out of all transfusions, 3594 units were of whole blood, 1978 units packed cells, 985 Fresh Frozen Plasma, 998 platelet rich plasma, 83 Single Donor Platelet. Supply of blood was found to be more in General Medicine department followed by Gynaecology and Obstetrics and General Surgery and least number of units were supplied to Operation Theatre. Furthermore, we examined the reasons of discarding the blood components; we found that 656 units of blood products were discarded in one year due to reasons like expiry of shelf life, HbsAg, HIV and HCV. Periodic review of utilization of blood and its components is important to avoid inappropriate use of blood and its components which may cause deficit amount of blood supply to patients suffering from serious ailments.