[Irradiated Blood Usage in a Tertiary-care Hospital.]

Irradiated blood is used to prevent transfusion-associated graft-versus host disease in high risk patients. The guidelines for usage of irradiated blood components vary from one country to other according to their needs. But in Korea, little information is available on the current usage of and the guidelines for irradiated blood. Therefore, we analyzed the usage of irradiated blood components in Hanyang University Medical Center.

Medical records were reviewed for 187 patients who had been transfused with irradiated blood products during the period from January 2004 to June 2005. And we investigated the proportion of irradiated blood products among the total number of blood products that were transfused during a one-year period.

Hematologic diseases and solid cancer patients comprised 63.7% and 24.6% respectively. The proportion of irradiated blood products among the total blood components were 25.7% of platelet concentrates, 61.4% of apheresis platelets, and 5.1% of packed red cells. Total transfused amount by disease categories and the average transfused units per patient of irradiated blood components were high in a group of patients with several hematologic diseases such as acute leukemia.

The use of irradiated blood components takes a great proportion in total blood product transfusions and the majority of blood components were transfused to a group of patients with a few hematologic diseases. The proper use of blood should be guided by the promotion and education of a modified usage protocol for irradiated blood products and by a continuous data analysis.