Blood warming in trauma related transfusions-Precepts and practices

Indrani Ghosh and Rudrashish Haldar*

Trauma patients often have a high incidence of hypothermia which is secondary to prolonged exposures, surgery and anaesthesia induced alteration of thermal homeostasis and infusion of cold fluids during resuscitation. Transfusion of red blood cells and blood products (except platelets) which are stored at low temperatures compound the situation by causing a further decrement in the core body temperatures. The resultant hypothermia is detrimental as it involves majority of the organ systems and causes numerous deleterious effects like wound infection, platelet dysfunction and arrythmias, which complicates the clinical scenario. To avoid hypothermia and the resultant undesirable physiological consequences, it is imperative to warm the blood and blood products prior to transfusion. This article highlights the adverse effects of blood transfusion associated hypothermia and briefly discusses the available practices of warming of blood and blood products along with their merits and demerits.

Keywords:

Published on: Dec 24, 2019 Pages: 94-97

Full Text PDF Full Text HTML DOI: 10.17352/2455-2976.000101
CrossMark Publons Harvard Library HOLLIS Search IT Semantic Scholar Get Citation Base Search Scilit OAI-PMH ResearchGate Academic Microsoft GrowKudos Universite de Paris UW Libraries SJSU King Library SJSU King Library NUS Library McGill DET KGL BIBLiOTEK JCU Discovery Universidad De Lima WorldCat VU on WorldCat