The problem of unusable transfusion units

Introduction. Availability of safe blood and blood products has always been a key strategy for addressing such health-related challenges. The most common reasons for blood wastage are expired blood validity, chylous blood, hemolysis in bags, insufficient amount of blood or extracted blood, damage to the bag during work or processing, blood positive for transmissible diseases, blood suspicious of transmissible diseases. The reasons also include insufficiently educated blood donors in terms of eating before giving blood, sometimes clinician's inadequate therapeutic choice regarding the expiration of individual blood units, and sometimes unplanned taking of less common blood groups. Material and Methods. We analyzed those blood units that did not meet the standards, as well as the reasons why this happened in the period from 2009 - 2014 in the Blood Transfusion Center Bar in Montenegro. The aim of this study was to objectively show the reasons for blood wastage in the specified period. Results. In the observed period of time, 7.001 units of whole blood were collected. Of those, there were 796 (11.36%) unusable blood units, which is very high according to the world standards. This is important because blood treatment is an extremely expensive and complex method and sometimes it is very difficult to collect rare blood groups. Conclusion. Discovering new and analyzing the existing factors that cause unused transfusion units, by planning and introduction of preventive measures and application only of safe blood in the treatment of patients, will significantly reduce the number of unusable blood units and contribute to faster and successful treatment of patients in the future.