Hello everyone, how are you all? I hope you all are doing well and i am too. I am in blood transfusion posting and i want to share what i am seeing and learning from here.
We are going to see and learn about how blood is donated. So there are basically two kinds of blood donations are done i mean to say lets take an example. A patient is having bilateral knee pains or hair loss and the clinicians will advise PRP which is platelet rich plasma as a treatment option and how do these patient gets platelet rich plasma? They will come to blood bank and they will give blood of 75 or 100 ml whole blood depending upon how much PRP required. So here blood collection is from patient itself and why we are collecting from patient? To make PRP from their own blood so there won't be any transfusion related problems. These PRP will contains platelets more compared to normal plasma thats why they are called platelets rich plasma and they will release growth factors and cytokines and helps in reducing inflammation and stimulating cartilage repair in patients having osteoarthritis and it promotes hair follicle growth by increasing blood supply and prolong the growth phase of hair cycle.
Another scenario is if a patient is having anemia or severe blood loss or needs blood during surgery, then you blood requirement is there so patient's relative or anyone can donate blood as a compensatory so that blood bank people can give a blood bag which they are already having after cross matching and all.
So here whoever is giving blood they should be clinically examined and then we have to tell them whether they are eligible for blood donations or not. We have to follow standard protocols for this. There is a form will be there and we have to document everything on it. If the patient or anyone is eligible for blood donation then we have to ask them to have proper food and these prerequisites are must to tell because they will get giddiness and they will fall. So proper food and proper food intake is must. Then we have to ask the patient to lie down the bed and the palpable vein which is cubital vein on either of the arm is selected and it is cleaned with spirit and antiseptic and then we have to tie a BP cuff around the arm and increase the BP, so that vein will be more palpable and pressure built in it. Then we have to take out the and arrange the blood bag which is having 4 bags thats why its called quadruple blood bag. A small bag will be there and a needle attached to it. The gauge size of the needle for blood collection is 16 G which is very large bore so there will be more pain when piercing the skin and vein.
The quadruple blood bag has small pouch with red arrow marked is called diversion pouch. The first 20 ml of blood is collected into it because it may have skin contaminants and to reduce contamination we have to collect into it and another use is, this pouch is stored and used for cross matching, transfusion-transmitted infections and grouping.
You can see blue arrow mark pointing that is sample collection port. It is used to collect blood directly from diversion pouch into the vacutainer tubes for testing. The vacutainer cap is removed and blood is collected in the vacutainer without any syringe or needle and it is closed sterile sampling method which is nowadays trending.
Once piercing done, BP cuff should be brought to 30-40 mm Hg pressure and it maintained. It will take 1-2, mins for PRP because only 75 or 100 ml is need to be collected and it will take around 5 mins if it 350 or 450 ml of whole blood collection. During blood collection the blood bag needs to be kept in the agitator so that blood will be in mobile phase and the CPDA or CPD which is present in the blood bag will get mixed with blood thoroughly and it avoids coagulation of blood. I have told about blood bags in my previous posts you can read there what it contains and its functions and all. once the blood is collected the needle is removed slowly with BP ciff brought to zero pressure and we have to ask the patient/donor to wait for 30 mins for observation. If they are alright then we can send the patient.
Now the collected blood has unique number that we have to write in register and how ml we have to collected and how much it has taken and any problems they got immediately after donating. Then we have to send the blood bag to next section that i am going to tell in next posts.
References
- Kawthalkar SM. Essentials of Clinical Pathology. 2nd edition 2018.
- TRANSFUSION MEDICINE TECHNICAL MANUAL Third Edition 2023
Thanks for reading, With regards,