BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The TRIP national hemovigilance and biovigilance office receives reports on side-effects and incidents associated with transfusion of labile blood products. Anaphylactic reactions accounted for the largest number of serious transfusion reactions in the period 2008-2012. In most cases, no cause is found for these reactions. TRIP data show that anaphylactic reactions occ...

INTRODUCTION Although blood transfusion is life saving for patients, it is responsible for a series of complications and exposes the patients to a variety of risks. Therefore knowing different adverse effects of blood transfusion represents a great issue in managing recipient patients. AIM The aim of the present work was to study the prevalence of blood transfusion complications among patient...

A short history of the blood transfusion activities in Slovenia is given, starting with the hommage to Dr. Janez Plečnik, a contributor to the famous experiment of the ABO blood groups discovery by Landsteiner in 1900. The organized blood transfusion services of Slovenia that celebrate the 60th anniversary in 2006 have been traditionally based on a system of unpaid voluntary blood donations whi...

Blood has been described as the most precious and personal substance in the world. Current directions in cardiac surgery are moving away from transfusing donor "Allogeneic" blood products, and towards improving methods of saving and preserving the patient's own "autologous" blood. Nothing else comes close to the natural healing abilities and homeostasis that one's own whole blood offers. No sub...

Science is ever changing and so is medicine. Some certainties today may not be valid tomorrow. New research, observations and outcomes can turn widely used current practices into no longer acceptable ones. Additionally, and especially in medicine, one may find more than one right answer to the same problem. Different physicians, with different backgrounds, may choose different ways to address a...

INTRODUCTION The Netherlands Armed Forces use -80°C frozen red blood cells (RBCs), plasma and platelets combined with regular liquid stored RBCs, for the treatment of (military) casualties in Medical Treatment Facilities abroad. Our objective was to assess and compare the use of -80°C frozen blood products in combination with the different transfusion protocols and their effect on the outcome o...