So I was certified for blood sampling and blood transfusing on friday.
Here was an interesting fact, that last data on incidents with blood for the UK is 2012, there were 6 people in the Uk given the wrong blood type in the whole country and none died.
There were a total of 9 deaths the whole of that year due to blood, 6 due to volume overload (heart failed and were given too much fluid...not the blood itself). Have a read yourselves...
Keep in mind there are 8000 transfusions A DAY in the uk....
Deaths n=9 (8 in 2011)
Transfusion-associated graft versus host disease (TA-GvHD) n=1 imputability 3 (none since 2000-2001) A fetus with anaemia related to maternal parvovirus received an intrauterine transfusion with maternal blood (non-irradiated, non-leucodepleted and HLA-related) and died from TA-GvHD three months after birth.
Unclassifiable complications of transfusion (UCT) n=1 imputability 2 (1 in 2011)
One patient died after receiving intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) that led to severe haemolysis and renal failure. An additional possible case of TRALI was reported in relation to IVIg contributing to morbidity.
Haemolytic transfusion reactions (HTR) n=1 imputability 2 (0 in 2011)
A man with myelodysplastic syndrome developed jaundice and died 8 days after a transfusion and was found to have anti-Jk a (undetectable before transfusion) that contributed to the death of an already sick man.
Transfusion-associated circulatory overload (TACO) n=6 (2 in 2011)
1 of these was ‘likely’ – imputability 2. This was a woman of low body weight transfused to a Hb of 176 g/L; 5 other deaths were classified as ‘possibly’ related to the transfusion – imputability 1.
