| 11. BLOOD TRANSFUSION AND ANAESTHESIA << Back to Patient Information List
Some forms of surgery are accompanied by expected blood loss. Examples include hip
replacement, vascular surgery, some abdominal procedures and cardiac surgery.
Where blood loss is anticipated, your anaesthetist will ensure that a sufficient volume of
“packed Red Cells” or “Whole Blood” is available for your operation.
This blood can be obtained as donated blood from the Red Cross (“donor blood”)
or if you have satisfied the health, age and contact criteria you may have been organized
to donate one or more deposits of your own blood in the weeks before your operation
(“autologous” blood) at a laboratory set up to collect and screen it.
As “donor” blood is a precious commodity, is used in major trauma, and has also
been associated with the transmission of some diseases in the past, your anaesthetist will
endeavour to use other types of intravenous fluid (saline and colloid solutions) where
possible to replace lost blood and will only give donor blood or blood products where
blood loss is large, rapid or uncontrolled.
“Donor” blood is screened by the Red Cross and also by the local Blood Bank to
be free of known disease and to be compatible with your own blood group. These days, donor
blood is considered safe.
“Autologous” blood that has been donated by the patient pre-operatively is also
screened by the local blood bank just before transfusion to ensure that no errors in
labelling or mix-ups have occurred. As autologous blood can only be used for the person
donating it, it is usually given to the patient during or at the end of the procedure.
Otherwise, it must be discarded.
Your anaesthetist, usually together with the anaesthetic nurse, triple-checks the
labelling on the blood unit immediately prior to its administration. This is to ensure
that it is totally compatible with the patient about to receive it. These stringent checks
ensure that patient-safety is maintained above all and that blood transfusion (where
required) is fee of complications.
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