Blood transfusion in neonates- An audit study

Introduction: Audit of blood transfusion practices is essential to monitor appropriate use of blood components. Many of the studies related to audit of blood components are based on adult population. There are very few studies addressing the audit of transfusion practices exclusively in pediatric population. Therefore present study was conducted to perform audit of transfusion practices, in order to study the appropriate and inappropriate usage of blood and its different components in neonatal population. Materials and Methods: This study was carried out in a tertiary care hospital with an FDA approved blood bank for duration of two year. Total 290 neonates from birth to 28 days and who were admitted to the NICU were chosen and data obtained from cross matching, issuing of blood products to successful transfusion and any problems that might arise including but not limited to transfusion reactions. Results: Out of total patients, 104 patients were transfused and 186 were not transfused. The total number of products issued from the blood bank and transfused was: PC transfused was 142 (including 13 whole blood), platelets 126 and FFP 19. The cross match to transfusion ratio was 2.42 and is within target ratio of ?2.5. The appropriateness of transfusions for PC and platelets was 87.5% and 78.9% respectively, is also a significantly higher number which is an indicator of optimum transfusion practice by NICU. Individual laboratory investigations had a statistically significant rise post transfusion. There was only one transfusion reaction reported which was minor allergic, non-hemolytic and non-febrile. Conclusions: Both blood bank and NICU are utilizing the available resources for adequate and timely treatment of patients which leads to demonstrable betterment in the clinical outcome and are following the national and the international guidelines for transfusion.