Can we Transfuse Blood Over Shorter Period ?

Blood transfusion is the mainstay of care for patients with different types of chronic severe anemia like thalassemia major. However, it is associated with serious risks and complications. In addition, blood transfusion is a lengthy procedure starting from pre-transfusion testing, clinical assessment, actual administration of blood and post-transfusion care. The main bulk of this procedure is usually related to administration of the blood which typically given over 3 hours (5ml/kg/hour) or even longer in certain cases. On average, such procedure may take most if not all the working day which leads to significant constrains on hospital bed utilization. Also, it is a significant burden on the patient and his/her family to comply with chronic transfusion program. As consequences, this leads to repeated absences from work or school. Although, it is the standard of care to infuse blood at rate of 5ml/kg/hour, there is no strong evidence to support that especially in pediatric population. Indeed, it has been accepted as standard of care to transfuse blood over short time in certain cases. For instance, in an emergency situation, it is allowable to infuse blood over less than one hour. Infusion of stem cells is allowed to be given over one hour as well without a major adverse event. In addition, blood donation is usually done over 30 - 60 minutes. As such, the goal for conducting this study is to find out if we can transfuse blood over the short time without causing any harm. Transfusion associated circulatory overload (TACO) is one of the complications of blood transfusion and known to occur more in adult patients with specific risk factors. TACO is very rare phenomenon in pediatric patients with normal underlying cardiorespiratory functions. In Literature review in pediatrics there was only one case report and that patient had a significant other co-morbidities and risk factors. In our study, there will be many safety measures taking in our consideration starting by very selective criteria to roll the patients in the study with clear inclusion and exclusion points. Blood transfusion rate determine during the study and will be escalated by 1ml/kg per each cohort only and before starting the blood transfusion vital signs will be taken then 15 minutes after blood transfusion running and by the end of the procedure so there will be 3 times documented vital signs and for more safety issue the patients will be attached to cardiopulmonary monitoring during the whole procedure. Our patients will have ECHO pre-and post-transfusion to detect right ventricle load. Patients will have Brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) level will be done before and after finishing of blood transfusion. Then at the end, 24 hours post transfusion evaluation will be done for all patients in the study.