Blood Transfusion Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Blood Transfusion, including details on blood donation, blood types, leukemia.

Failure of bedside ABO testing is still the most common cause of incorrect blood transfusion in the Barcode era.

Ahrens N, Pruss A, Kiesewetter H, Salama A

Institute for Transfusion Medicine, Charité-University Medicine Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Augustenburger Platz 1, D-13353 Berlin, Germany. norbert.ahrens@charite.de

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES. ABO-incompatible red blood cell (RBC) transfusions are a major risk in transfusion medicine. Identification of factors leading to this hazard is important to improve transfusion safety. MATERIAL AND METHODS. All consecutive erroneous ABO-incompatible transfusions occurring from January 1997 to December 2004 at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, Germany were analysed. RESULTS. A total of 343,432 RBC units were transfused, and eight patients erroneously received 13 ABO-incompatible RBC concentrates. The most frequent error was incorrect bedside testing (n=7). Intensive care treatment was required in two cases, but there were no fatal mistransfusions. Four patients had no or only mild reactions. CONCLUSION. Mistransfusions are still a considerable risk in transfusion medicine despite quality control systems and electronic data processing. An increase in transfusion safety may require the introduction of further systems, e.g. radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags.

Published 20 July 2005 in Transfus Apher Sci, 33(1): 25-9.
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