Infectious nature of packed red blood cells from the perspective of pathology, medical laboratory technology and haematology - An original research

Transfusion of packed red blood cells remains a mainstay and integral part in patient management. The blood is a limited and precious resource and the attempts to come up with alternate to blood have not yielded any satisfactory results, the judicious and appropriate use of blood and its component become very important. This was a prospective study conducted in Blood bank, Department of pathology at Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute carried out after approval of institutional ethics committee for a period of one year (May 2020- May2021). 600 patients were included in thestudy. All the requests form for packed red blood cells referred to blood bank more than 18 years of age from all the clinical departments included in the study. Overall, 1487 Packed red blood cell units were requested and cross-matched, 939 PRBC units were utilized by 600 patients during the study period. The maximum number of units 52.6% were utilized by female patients 53.6% and 47.3% requests from 46.3% males. We analyzed appropriate utilization of PRBC using quality indicators. In which overall, CT ratio is 1.5, TI is 1.3, TP is 84%, thereby indicating appropriate usage of packed red blood cell unit in our study. However, considering individual specialty department showed excess ordering and cross-matching of blood. NUP was observed to be 36.8%, resulting in excessive crossmatching of red cell units and non-utilization. Received: 26th March 2025Accepted: 7th September 2025.