The hospital for sick children, Toronto organized a one day seminar on the subject of transfusion. Below are my notes for reference.
-The nurses responsible to supervise the transfusion should make sure the color of the blood is red. This is not a joke, if the blood is out of refrigerator for longer period, the bacteria grow in oxygen envoirnment and the color of blood changes to dark or blackish.
-The blood once out of the fridge should be consumed within 4 hours, any left over can be discarded.
-The blood is stored at 4C degree for proper consumption.
- The blood contains thousands of antigen and any can cause problem.
-The antigen should be checked on all blood samples - The antigen test that should be performed are: ABO, RH, Kell, Duffy and KIDD.
-Ofcourse all blood sample will be checked for HIV antibody, however, HIV (NAT) nuclear acid test should be performed which would detect the presence of hiv virus rather than antibodies.
-The symptoms of hemolysis include back pain, dark urine etc.
-The cross matched blood is only good for 3 days.
-Washed red cells should be transfused within 24hours.
-The Hospital for sick kids is currently conducting post marketing study of exjade.
-Exjade has proved to be efficient in different ethnicity. Study is going on. South Asian seems to give good response.
-The hospital for sick kids has a very good program for adolescent transition. I recommend everybody to visit the website
http://www.sickkids.ca/good2go/ and look for thalassemia program. The information is public and you can use my health passport to detail and print your condition in a wallet size page. Keep this information handy all times.
Will post iron overload topics tomorrow.