Blood component therapy and massive transfusion

This chapter is intended as an aid to understanding the preparation of, indications for, and potential complications of blood components for obstetric critical care. The term blood component therapy refers to the use of specific components of whole blood for a specific patient’s needs. Long-term storage of frozen red blood cells (RBCs) may be necessary for those individuals who have rare blood types and for some autologous donors. The purpose of a red cell transfusion is to restore oxygen-carrying capacity in order to maintain adequacy of tissue oxygenation. Massive transfusion is defined as the replacement of one or more blood volumes within 24 hours. Acute normovolemic hemodilution (ANH) refers to the collection of 1 or more units of whole blood just before initiating surgery followed by the reinfusion of this blood at the end of surgery. An acute hemolytic transfusion reaction (AHTR) occurs when RBCs containing antigens to existing antibodies in recipient plasma are transfused.