Ten Years of Preoperative Autologous Blood Donation in Accra

Abstract

Background - Preoperative autologous blood donation (PABD) is utilized to circumvent the use of allogenic blood for various reasons. Objective - To describe the distribution in terms of demographic characteristic, trends in participation and result of screening test of the PABD programme of the Accra Area Blood Center from 1993-2003. Design and Setting Retrospective descriptive study of PABD in patients scheduled for a variety of elective surgical procedures. Setting- Different levels of institutional health care in Accra, Ghana. Methods Data from existing records of patients who had participated in PABD were collated and analyzed Results Five hundred and forty six (546) females and 89 males participated, with ages ranging between 14-74 years. Majority of the patients (76.7%) underwent gynaecological surgery. A total of 330 (52%) donated one unit only, and 299 (47.1%) donated two units. Majority of the patients (56.4%) had the surgery at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH). Of the donations, 21 (3.3%), 1 (0.2%), 1 (0.3%) and nil were positive for HBV, HIV I & II, HCV and VDRL respectively. A total of 848 (89.4%) autologous crossmatched units were issued out. There was a steady progressive increase in participation. Conclusion Mainly adult females scheduled for gynaecological surgeries in KBTH participated, while almost equal proportions donated one or two units of blood which meets the blood needs of most elective surgeries. Therefore healthy patients going for elective surgeries in regions with limited blood supply must be encouraged to enter a PABD Programme. Further studies in this field should evaluate motivational factors for participation