Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Borla
Like I said, there is an entire medical school of thought today that blood transfusions are better replaced by other volume expanders that do not cause such side effects. There are many, many major hospitals in the US that have bloodless medical wings now, due to that.
|
Yes, but that's probably also partially due to the fact that in the last few years they've developed and been testing a new blood replacement fluid. The component inside the fluid can actually carry oxygen like real blood does. Older blood-replacement fluids (and I don't mean normal saline or lactated ringers) were based on animal hemoglobin and thus not all people could use it, and it was still a blood product of sorts so it still carried some risks.
The newest stuff they're testing out now (both in some hospitals and in some EMS crews) is completely synthetic, there don't seem (so far) to be any inherent risks in its usage because there is no chance of "something missed in screening" and it's not actual blood so there's nothing for the immune system to reject (no typing and cross-matching). It carries oxygen just like real blood does, only it does it better. The cells carry many times more oxygen than our human red blood cells do. It also has a really good shelf life- unlike blood, which has a terribly short shelf-life when thawed. I've read a bit about it, and it seems like it could end up replacing blood in a lot of volume-replacement circumstances. It's just a few years down the road before testing will be sufficient to see it in widespread use.