A study of blood usage by diagnoses in a Korean university hospital.
OBJECTIVE
There is paucity of comprehensive data on the blood usage with regard to diagnostic categories of Asian recipients. The purpose of this study is to analyse data for blood usage in a korean university hospital in order to obtain additional information on transfusion practices in relation to diagnoses.


METHODS
Data of information on patients discharged during the period from March 1996 to February 2002, who have received packed red blood cells (RBC), fresh frozen plasmas (FFP), and platelet components (PLT) were extracted from the computerized registers. We used only the principal four-digit diagnostic categories of the Tenth Revision of International Classification of Diseases.


RESULTS
A total of 397 489 units of blood components (RBC 171 916 units; FFP 69 301 units; and PLT 156 272 units) were transfused for 17.2% of all discharged patients. Acute myeloid leukaemia, liver cell carcinoma, advanced gastric cancer, alcoholic or other unspecified cirrhosis of liver were the top 5 diagnoses related with the highest usage of blood component.


CONCLUSIONS
The results showed a different blood usage pattern compared to those of previous studies. These provide a baseline transfusion practice at our institution, and the data would help in predicting future blood needs in a variety of diagnostic categories.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Ajou University School of Medicine, Suwon, Korea. limyoung@ajou.ac.kr
Young Ae
YA
Lim
Wee Gyo
WG
Lee
Sung Ran
SR
Cho
Bong Hak
BH
Hyun
D
D
Sc
D001803:Blood Transfusion / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003625:Data Collection; D004194:Disease / Q000145:classification*; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea