Packed Red Blood Cells

blood products massive transfusion protocol patient safety perioperativenursing safety Nov 13, 2023

Red blood cells are life. Literally. And sometimes we need to give patients a bag of someone else’s blood. 🩸🩸

πŸ‘‰πŸ½ How is it prepared?
Packed red cells are collected by taking whole blood, mixing it with an anticoagulant, spinning off the plasma and resuspending it in a salty solution (called SAG-M*) to prolong its shelf life. PRBC can also be washed to reduce the risk of transfusion reaction.

πŸ‘‰πŸ½ When is it used?
It is used to treat clinically significant anaemia (with symptomatic oxygen-carrying deficit) and to replace traumatic or surgical blood loss. It should not be given to patients when the anaemia can be treated with other therapies (iron, vitamin B12, EPO, folate).

πŸ‘‰πŸ½ What will it do?
1 unit raises the Hb concentration by ~10g/L

πŸ‘‰πŸ½ What’s in the bag?
~ 260ml of red blood cells & *SAG-M (saline, adenine, glucose, mannitol)
~ Haemoglobin concentration of 48
~ Trace amounts of white blood cells

πŸ‘‰πŸ½ What types are available?
Group O, A, B, AB with RhD + and RhD -.

πŸ‘‰πŸ½ How is it stored?
2 – 6 degrees in storage
Should be limited to less than 30 mins outside controlled storage conditions

πŸ‘‰πŸ½ Shelf life
42 days

πŸ‘‰πŸ½ How to give it:
Via a blood administration giving set with a standard 170-200µm filter, within fours hours from removal from storage conditions.

Smarter. Safer. Happier. πŸ˜€βœ…

Ref: https://blood.gov.au/fresh-blood-products

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