[Preoperative autologous transfusion--its methods and clinical usefulness]

In spite of continuing development in transfusion medicine, homologous transfusion accompanies risks and problems, such as viral infection, alloimmunization, transfusion associated GVHD and immunosuppressive reactions. To avoid these risks of homologous transfusion, autologous blood transfusion has been introduced as the safest blood transfusion. Here, methods of predeposit autologous blood transfusion and its clinical usefulness are described. There are two methods for predeposit autologous transfusion; Liquid preservation and frozen preservation. The merit of the former is easy and economical, but 3 units (1200 ml) will be maximum volume to collect in 3 weeks before surgery. While frozen preservation, patient can predeposit the necessary amount of blood without affecting their preoperative condition, as we can set the intervals of blood collections more than 3 weeks, and blood can be stored up to 10 years. However this method requires equipment and cost more.