The direct labor cost for providing life-saving blood to air medical transport for pre-hospital transfusion.

An IRB approved 2-year review and cost analysis of all packed red blood cells (pRBCs) issued, transfused and returned to the blood bank by air medical transport services for pre-hospital transfusion was performed. The cost to the blood bank for issuing and returning pRBCs that were not transfused in the pre-hospital setting was $3.24 per unit.

Storage Age of RBCs Transfused by a Prehospital Patient Transport Program vs the Hospital Emergency Department.

Objectives: Recently published data suggest that transfusion of RBCs stored for 22 days or longer was associated with increased mortality among massively transfused trauma patients.

Methods: We performed a 24-month retrospective review of medical transport service transfusion records and a 2-month, overlapping review of transfusions of uncrossmatched RBCs in the emergency department.

Results: RBC units issued to the transport program were older than RBC units issued to the emergency department trauma refrigerator (10.

Detection of Nicotine and Nicotine Metabolites in Units of Banked Blood.

Objectives: To determine the concentrations of nicotine and nicotine metabolites in RBC units as a means to estimate the point prevalence of exposure within the healthy donor pool.

Methods: Segments from 105 RBC units were tested for the presence of nicotine, cotinine, or trans-3'-hydroxycotinine by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

Results: Of the 20 (19%) units that contained detectable concentrations of nicotine, cotinine, or trans-3'-hydroxycotinine, 19 (18.

Duplicate Type and Screen Testing: Waste in the Clinical Laboratory.

Context: - In the United States, approximately $65 billion dollars is spent per year on clinical laboratory testing, of which 20% to 30% of all testing is deemed inappropriate. There have been multiple studies in the field of transfusion medicine regarding evidence-based transfusion practices, but limited data exist regarding inappropriate pretransfusion testing and its financial and clinical implications.

Objective: - To assess duplicative testing practices in the transfusion medicine service.

Using direct antiglobulin test results to reduce unnecessary cold agglutinin testing.

Background: Cold agglutinin disease (CAD) is a rare autoimmune hemolytic anemia mediated by autoantibodies that preferentially react at 4°C. Laboratory testing for cold-reactive autoantibodies is laborious and may not be ordered judiciously, particularly in patients with a negative direct antiglobulin test (DAT). We sought to determine whether a negative DAT using anti-human complement (anti-C3) rules out elevated cold agglutinin (CA) titers and the diagnosis of CAD.

Hemolysis of red blood cells after cell washing with different automated technologies: clinical implications in a neonatal cardiac surgery population.

Background: In subsets of pediatric cardiac surgery patients, red blood cells (RBCs) are often washed to reduce extracellular potassium (K) to avoid hyperkalemia, but mechanical manipulation and time delay in issuing washed products may increase hemolysis and K. This study's purpose was to evaluate the quality of washed RBCs with regard to hemolysis and extracellular K using different cell washers as a function of postprocessing time.

Study Design And Methods: Fresh (<4 days old) RBCs were washed on COBE 2991 blood cell processors (Model 1 and Model 2) or the Fresenius Continuous AutoTransfusion System (CATS), and K and hemolysis index (HI) were analyzed.