Analysis of Rate and Reasons of Discarding of Blood and its Components in Tertiary Care Hospital Blood Bank

Abstract

Transfusion of blood and its components is integral part of patient health care management in today’s era. The blood and the blood components have no complete substitute till date. Therefore, every unit of blood and its components are very precious and should be utilized very cautiously. The blood components wastage is an important issue in health care system. The blood components wastage is generally due to poorly managed stock, poor storage, transportation along with local reasons of the respective blood bank. The present study was undertaken to analyze rate and the reasons of the discard of blood and blood components in tertiary care hospital blood bank for the period from January 2017 to December 2021. In the present study, the blood components discard rate was 4.46%. The discard rate of platelets was highest with 35.79%. The discard rate of whole blood, packed cells, Fresh Frozen Plasma (FFP) was 6.55%, 0.84% and 2.90% respectively. The shortest shelf life was the reason for the platelets discard and attributed to its highest discard rate. The other reasons of discard of blood components were transfusion transmitted infections (TTI), leakage, expiry, low volume etc. The large scale study to be conducted for identification of causes and percentage of blood components wastage and targeted intervention is needed for the effective reduction of blood components wastage.