title: Clinical impact of blood storage lesions.
abstract: Recent reports suggest that transfusion of old red blood cell (RBC) units (>2 weeks) was associated with increased risks of postoperative complications and higher mortality rate caught public attention (Yap et al., Ann Thorac Surg 2008; 86:554-559 and Koch et al., 2008; 358:1229-1239). This rekindled the decades old discussion regarding the impact of RBC aging and storage lesions in patient care. The objectives of this review are to provide readers with an overview of the process of banking RBC that may have an impact on its quality, the reported clinical impact of storage lesions, the consequences of transfusing new RBC units only to the nation's blood supply and potential solutions that may improve the feasibility of blood banks to issue new blood units only.
authors.affiliation: Transfusion Medicine and Stem Cell therapy, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic, Florida, USA. zubair.abba@mayo.edu
authors.forename: Abba C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Zubair
mesh_terms: D001771:Blood Banks; D017707:Erythrocyte Transfusion / Q000401:mortality*; D004912:Erythrocytes; D006801:Humans; D011309:Preservation, Biological / Q000009:adverse effects*