How we provide transfusion support for neonatal and pediatric patients on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) provides lifesaving hemodynamic and respiratory support to neonatal and pediatric patients with a variety of congenital or acquired cardiopulmonary defects. Successful ECMO support requires close collaboration among multiple services, including critical care medicine, perfusion, and transfusion medicine services. Neonatal and pediatric ECMO patients require significant transfusion support, both at the time of cannulation and after the ECMO circuit has been established, often with little advance notice.

Analysis of hematopoietic cell transplants using plasma-depleted cord blood products that are not red blood cell reduced.

Limited cell dose hampers wider use of cord blood transplantation (CBT). By depleting plasma but not RBC during processing, nucleated cell (NC) loss is reduced to <0.1% which increases significantly the proportion of high cell dose products-3-fold for products with NC >or=200 x 10(7).