Indian journal of anaesthesia
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Managing a bleeding patient is very challenging for the perioperative physician. Bleeding in a patient would be due to inherited or acquired disorders of haemostasis. Identifying the patients at risk of bleeding and utilising prophylactic treatment protocols has good outcomes. ⋯ Management of patients in the postoperative period and in intensive care unit should be focused on normalization of coagulation profile as early as possible with available blood and its products. Available recombinant factors should be given priority as per the approved indications. Exploring the surgical site should be considered for persistent bleeding because haemodynamic compromise, excessive transfusion of fluids, blood and its products and more inotropic support may have a negative impact on the patient outcome.
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Patients in the perioperative period and intensive care unit are commonly exposed to blood transfusion (BT). They are at increased risk of transfusion transmitted bacterial, viral and protozoal diseases. The risk of viral transmission has decreased steadily, but the risk of bacterial transmission remains same. ⋯ Challenges to safe BT continue due to new emerging pathogens and various management problems. Strategies to restrict BT, optimal surgical and anaesthetic techniques to reduce blood loss and efforts to develop transfusion alternatives should be made. Literature search was performed using search words/phrases blood transfusion, transfusion, transfusion transmitted diseases, transfusion transmitted bacterial diseases, transfusion transmitted viral diseases, transfusion transmitted protozoal diseases or combinations, on PubMed and Google Scholar from 1990 to 2014.
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Transfusion of blood products carries certain inherent risks and hence it should be undertaken only if it improves patient outcome. A review of the literature was carried out to find the indications and effects of transfusion on morbidity and mortality of patients. There is high-quality evidence showing that restrictive blood transfusion with a transfusion trigger of haemoglobin of 7-8 g/dl or the presence of symptoms of anaemia is safe and not associated with increased mortality compared with liberal transfusion. ⋯ There is moderate evidence for the use of plasma and platelet transfusion in patients receiving massive blood transfusion. There is not enough evidence to support the use of plasma, platelets and cryoprecipitate in any other clinical setting. Retrospective studies show improved survival after high plasma and platelet to red blood cell ratio of 1:1:1, but this has not been confirmed in randomised trials.
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A small group of people belonging to a certain religion, called Jehovah's witness do not accept blood transfusion or blood products, based on biblical readings. When such group of people are in need of health care, their faith and belief is an obstacle for their proper treatment, and poses legal, ethical and medical challenges for attending health care provider. ⋯ Appropriate management of such patients entails understanding of ethical and legal issues involved, providing meticulous medical management, use of prohaemostatic agents, essential interventions and techniques to reduce blood loss and hence, reduce the risk of subsequent need for blood transfusion. An extensive literature search was performed using search engines such as Google scholar, PubMed, MEDLINE, science journals and textbooks using keywords like 'Jehovah's witness', 'blood haemodilution', 'blood salvage' and 'blood substitutes'.
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Perioperative anaemia and allogenic blood transfusion (ABT) are known to increase the risk of adverse clinical outcomes. The quality, cost and availability of blood components are also major limitations with regard to ABT. ⋯ The goals of PBM are adequate preoperative evaluation and optimization of haemoglobin and bleeding parameters, techniques to minimize blood loss, blood conservation technologies and use of transfusion guidelines with targeted therapy. Attention to these details can help in cost reduction and improved patient outcome.