Current Pediatric Research

Introduction: Blood transfusion is an integral part of modern health care system without which proper medical care may not be possible. Despite the availability of guidelines and protocols and sophisticated blood banking services worldwide, a high rate of inappropriate use of blood transfusion practices has been reported around the world, both in the developed and developing countries. Hence proper monitoring is necessary to control this indiscriminate use of blood and blood components. There are very few studies addressing the audit of transfusion practices exclusively in paediatric population. Hence this study was designed to evaluate the red blood cell transfusion practices of paediatric patients admitted in our tertiary care hospital with specialty and superspeciality departments in Western part of India and analyze the utilization pattern of red blood cell transfusion based on age group, gender and disease conditions requiring transfusion.

Materials and methods: A Retrospective study was conducted with 300 paediatric patients over a period of 18 months. In order to assess the appropriateness and inappropriateness and to assess the adequacy of documentation in case of Red blood cell transfusions. Statistical analysis: All data was analysed and calculated as descriptive statistics in the form of percentages out of total red cell transfusion episodes.

Results: Total 679 units of red cell were transfused in 300 consecutive episodes of red cell transfusion that were included in the study. The clinical specialty with the highest red cell transfusion episodes was paediatric medicine (82.33%) followed by neonatology (9.33%). Out of 300 red cell transfusion episodes, 132 (44%) episodes were appropriate in terms of indications and the dose transfused rest of the 168 (56%) were categorized to be inappropriate with only one adverse reaction was documented.

Conclusion: The study identified a high rate of irrational red blood cell transfusions and inadequacy of transfusion documentation. Regular transfusion audits and implementation of educational programs on rational use of blood components for the clinicians are recommended based on the findings of this study.

Author(s): Sandesh Pandurang Yemalwad, Swarupa Nikhil Bhagwat

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