30 December 2022 (Friday) - Getting the BTLP-TACT Wrong (?)

 

The plan for the morning was to take the dogs to the woods, but it is pouring with rain… so why not do one of these?

 

I was presented with two cases:

 

32486 – a sixty-two year old chap in the operating theatre needing group & save for a fratured neck of femur
He grouped as A Rh(D) Positive with a negative antibody screen

 

75877 – a twenty-three year-old woman in labour needing four units of CMV-neg blood as soon as possible

She grouped as A Rh(D) Positive with a negative antibody screen

I selected four units of A Rh(D) Positive CMV negative which were also K Negative

 

I got it wrong… I say “I got it wrong” - It was expecting “uninterpretable” where I’d said “Positive” but look at the reasoning.  “Interpretable D group was wrongly identified as uninterpretable”

 

I got the red light and have absolutely no idea why. It looks like it has stuffed up, and the software won’t let me access the exercise to see what I got wrong.

This isn’t the first time it has done this…

23 December 2022 (Friday) - Transfusion News Update

The nice people at Transfusion News sent their update today.

Using Beriplex (and the like) to reduce red cell usage during surgery is an interesting idea.

FDA guidance to reduce malarial transmission is… I don’t know but I suspect a little way behind NHSBT (am I wrong here?)

But I can’t help but the engineering of autologous platelets is never going to catch on.

 

Prothrombin Complex Concentrate Reduces RBC Transfusions during Cardiac Surgery

December 21, 2022 Over one million people undergo complex cardiac surgeries worldwide each year. Cardiac surgeries carry a considerable risk of postoperative bleeding and coagulation complications. During complex cardiac surgeries, fibrinogen levels and coagulation factor activities all decrease by about 40%. [Read More]

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Updated FDA Guidance to Reduce the Risk of Transfusion-Transmitted Malaria

December 13, 2022 In April 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued four blood donor eligibility guidelines—including one for malaria—to help alleviate blood shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2022, the FDA issued new guidance to reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted malaria, which is unchanged from the April 2020 guidance. [Read More]

First Autologous Human Transfusion of Engineered Platelets

December 7, 2022 Approximately 2 million units of platelets are transfused each year in the United States, but there are many drawbacks and safety concerns with donor-derived platelets, including bacterial contamination and a short shelf life. In addition, 5% to 15% of patients develop alloimmune platelet transfusion refractoriness (allo-PTR) to human platelet antigens, such as HLA antibodies. [Read More]