A retrospective study of blood transfusion in dogs from a veterinary hospital in Bangkok, Thailand

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Blood transfusion is the established therapeutic method for anemic human patients and has recently become more practical in veterinary medicine. The objectives of this study were to demonstrate the etiology of anemia, the effectiveness of blood transfusion, and the incidence of transfusion reaction after treatment in dogs. The data of the transfusion veterinary service at the Chulalongkorn Veterinary Teaching Hospital (CVTH) were collected from January 2005 to February 2006. The presentation, causes of anemia, hematology, and transfusion reaction of 41 dogs were summarized as frequency and percentage. The hematology data were continuously analyzed as mean, median, and range. The mean of packed cell volume before and after treatment of all dogs was 11.3 and 26.5%, respectively. The anemic causes of 41 dogs were categorized into three groups including blood loss (43.90%), ineffective erythropoiesis (34.15%), and hemolysis (21.95%). The hematology of three categorized groups was not significantly different. Acute nonhemolytic transfusion reactions were observed in 4.18% of the dogs after transfusion, and they rapidly recovered after treatment. Although transfusion treatment in dogs shows good short-term efficacy, for complete therapeutic results, long-term data need to be gathered.