The Effect of Component Transfusion on Perioperative Change of Hemoglobin , Hematocrit and Platelet Count

Ham, Byung Moon; Park, Nam Hoon; Kim, Yong Lack; Kim, Chong Sung

Abstract

The progress of anesthetic and surgical techniques has resulted in an increase in the number of operations requiring transfusions over the past 10 years. Thus, the incidence of complications from shortage transfusions increases daily and a blood supply shortage occurred recently. blood component therapy is now believed to be an answer to these problems. To assess the effect of blood component therapy, especially packed RBC transfusion compared with routine whole blood transfusion, the author compared the preoperative and postoperative hemoglobin, hematocrit and platelet count values. The conclusions are as follows: 1) There were no significant changes in hemoglobin and hematocrit values of the whole population studied, from preoprative values of 12.6+/-0.2g% and 37.6+/-0.6% to postoperative values of 12.7+/-0.1g% and 38.2+/-0.4%, respectively. The platelet count significantly decreased (p<0.05) from 305200+/-9500/mm(3) preoperatively to 249600+/-8800/mm(3) postoperatively in the whole population studied. 2) There were no significant changes in hemoglobin and hematocrit levels according to age distribution, type of transfusion, amount of transfusion, surgical department and operative site, except in the Department of General Surgery, in abdominal surgery, and tumor group surgery in which preoperative hemoglobin and hematocrit values were slightly increased postoperatively. 3) The platelet count significantly decreased postoperatively in the whole population studied except in transfusion amounts under 1 unit, in the age distributions of 20~29, 60~69 and above 70 years, in the Departments of Neurosurgery, Urology, Plastic Surgery, Dental Surgery, ENT, and in head and neck surgery. However, it did not decrease to the level of abnormal bleeding(50.000/mm(3). From the above results, blood component therapy, especially packed RBC transfusion, made no difference in maintaining postoperative hemoglobin and hematocrit levels compared with routine whole blood transfusion.