ABSTRACT
Blood transfusion is the most important medical advance of World War I (1). The quantity of blood shipped (2000 units a day) to U.S. troops during World War II in March 1945 is the highest rate of blood transported in U.S. military history, and was required to support the 12 million military personnel who sustained 30,000 casualties in that month alone (2,3). The benefits of blood in saving lives of those injured were fully recognized by British and American medical units, yet the United States entered the Korean War without a formal military blood program. In Vietnam, the most frequent mode of transfusion was two to five units of red blood cells (RBCs), usually given as packed RBCs (PRBCs), but small amounts of fresh whole blood were drawn on site for production of platelets or direct administration to coagulopathic casualties. More than 100,000 universal donor group O uncross-matched RBCs were transfused in Vietnam without a single fatal hemolytic transfusion reaction. The nine reported fatal transfusion reactions all followed misidentified cross-matched blood (4). Although small stores of PRBCs are available, large quantities of blood are also collected and administered as whole blood to military trauma victims.
