POTENTIAL FREQUENCY OF AUTOLOGOUS BLOOD DONATION IN PATIENTS UNDERGOING ELECTIVE SURGERY REQUIRING BLOOD TRANSFUSION

To calculate the total “potential” frequency of preoperatively donated autologous erythrocyte (red blood cell or RBC) units, we studied 438 surgical admissions who received transfusions for surgical procedures in one year in Saitama Medical Center. Eighty-five patients received 317 autologous RBC units, representing 3.6% (317 of 8, 823) of all RBC transfusions at our hospital in one year and 14.6% (317 of 2, 172) of all RBC transfusions for surgical procedures in the study period. Emergency operations represented 168 (38.4%) admissions, and 7 admissions were children under the age of 4. Of the remaining 263 elective surgical admissions, 85 (32.3%) cases donated autologous RBC units, 49 (18.6%) cases were anemic with preoperative hemoglobin concentrations less than 10.0g/dl, and 79 (30.3%) cases were senile and older than 68 years, second operations for malignant tumor or operations for metastaic regions, or were cases of infectious disease. The latter 128 cases were considered ineligible for preoperative autologous blood donation (PABD) and the remaining 50 (19.0%) were considered eligible for PABD. The maximum percentage eligibility for PABD would be 51.3% (135 of 263 elective surgeries), if all eligible patients had predeposited autologous blood. In conclusion, 63.0% (85 of 135) of eligible patients actually predeposited autologous blood in our hospital.