Blood conservation strategies in anesthesia and intensive care

blood conservation has evolved into an important issue in hospital based medicine. Increased awareness of and worry about transfusion associated diseases has promoted a focus on this important area.Blood conservation techniques during surgery will assist in resolving the imbalance between the shortage in homologues blood donation and its demand and are particularly useful in anemic patients undergoing emergency procedures, patients undergoing elective procedures with anticipated blood loss, patients requiring postoperative blood transfusion, patients with rare blood types, patients with antibodies to common minor antigens and also in patients with religious objections to homologues blood use.Anesthesiologists are frequently met with many patients that are in need for blood transfusion during their anesthetic practice. Blood transfusion though life saving carries the potential for producing complications e.g. transmission of infectious diseases such as AIDS, viral hepatitis and others, non-infectious risks of blood transfusion including hemolytic reactions which may lead to acute renal failure and death and non-hemolytic reactions as allergic reactions. Blood conservation can protect the patient from all these hazards.The anesthesiologists can make considerable contribution in reducing blood transfusion by using techniques that reduce the amount of homologus blood used to maintain normal blood volume or techniques to replace blood volume by methods other than blood transfusion.