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Monitoring of Storage and Transportation Temperature Conditions in Red Blood Cell Units: A Cross-Sectional Study

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Indian Journal of Hematology and Blood Transfusion Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The process of storage and transportation of the red blood cells (RBCs) out of the standard temperature range lead to some biochemical reactions. Infusing inappropriately stored RBCs may cause severe complications. The main objective of this study was to investigate the RBC bags’ temperature during the transfusion chain including storage, transportation, and transfusion. A cross-sectional study was performed on 100 RBC bags that were sent from the blood bank to the cardiac surgical intensive care unit (CSICU) and the operating room (OR). To record the temperature of RBCs, a temperature monitoring device was attached to each bag of RBCs that were transported from the blood bank to the CSICU and the OR. The stored temperature samples in the devices related to different stages were separated. Finally, the normal and non-normal samples of each phase were segregated based on the current guidelines. The results indicated that 10% of 121,262 recorded temperatures samples (per 2 min) were out of the standard range. Of these, 65, 17, 13, and 5% of samples were related to the blood bank, the OR, transportation, and the CSICU, respectively. The minimum and maximum temperatures were 0 °C and 19.5 °C that were below and above the standard, respectively. In the light of findings of the present study, different stages of blood transportation and storage suffer a number of shortcomings, which are more evident in the blood bank. Thus, it is recommended to better manage blood transfusion chain from the blood bank to hospital wards so as to avoid the inadvertent and undesirable consequences of blood transfusion. Because various judgments made by the personnel about the status of blood bags are subjective, a temperature monitoring device can be employed to better monitor the blood transfusion process and compensate for the errors unnoticed by the personnel.

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Funding

This research was part of the first author’s MSc thesis which was supported by a grant from Mashhad University of Medical Science Research Council (Khorasan Razavi, Mashhad, Iran; Number: 950116; Date: September 7, 2016).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Informatics, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Shokoufeh Aalaei

  2. Department of Anesthesiology, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Shahram Amini

  3. Cancer Molecular Pathology Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Mohammad Reza Keramati

  4. Young Researchers and Elite Club, Zahedan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Zahedan, Iran

    Hadi Shahraki

  5. Departments of Medical Informatics, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Saeid Eslami

  6. Department of Medical Informatics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Saeid Eslami

  7. Pharmaceutical Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

    Saeid Eslami

Authors
  1. Shokoufeh Aalaei
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  2. Shahram Amini
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  3. Mohammad Reza Keramati
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  4. Hadi Shahraki
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  5. Saeid Eslami
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Contributions

SE, SA, MK, and SA (first author) conceived the study idea and design. SE, HS, and SA (first author) participated in the device development. SA (first author) collected the data. MK, SE and SA interpreted the data. SA (first author) drafted the manuscript. All authors have been involved in critically revising the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Saeid Eslami.

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Conflict of interest

The authoer declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

Ethical committee approval for the study was obtained from Mashhad University of Medical Sciences on 07 Jun 2015 and numbered 930616.

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Aalaei, S., Amini, S., Keramati, M.R. et al. Monitoring of Storage and Transportation Temperature Conditions in Red Blood Cell Units: A Cross-Sectional Study. Indian J Hematol Blood Transfus 35, 304–312 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12288-018-1038-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12288-018-1038-6

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