ABSTRACT
The term Blood Product, then, is an all embracing term used to describe any end-product produced from human blood. First, there is whole bloody which is collected into a solution that functions both to anticoagulate and preserve the red blood cells. These are simple solutions containing citric acid to chelate calcium and, therefore, prevent activation of the coagulation system and glucose to allow red cells to metabolize during in vitro storage (e.g., citrate-phosphate-dextrose or CPD). Adenine may also be present (CPD-A1), which improves red blood cell adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels. Anticoagulated whole blood is collected into, stored in, and transfused from, its primary container. Although whole blood was commonly used prior to the 1970s, this has diminished over the past decades. The two remaining clinical situations where whole blood is still preferentially requested for transfusion are patients with trauma requiring multiple transfusions and car diac surgery, particularly pediatric cardiac surgery. This is because it has been suggested that ‘fresh’ whole blood (less than 48 hours old) may be preferable to correct any coagulopathy which may develop in these patients. However, the prac tical logistics of having fresh whole blood routinely available makes this difficult to achieve in practice.
