Our post-transfusion reaction workup does not require that a urine be sent for a dipstick as long as the visual check for hemolysis in the post-reaction tubes is negative. Is a first post-reaction urine required by any regulatory agencies or is it just 'recommended'?

If anyone has an SOP for TR investigations- together with a flow chart- would be really appreciated

Thanks!

Rashmi

I did a quick scan through the AABB Technical Manual and Standards and my most recent CAP checklist, and I couldn't find that a post-reaction urine specimen was required. (Anybody sure what JCAHO says?)

Donna

Urinalysis is an ancillary testing for hemolytic transfusion reactions. Use it to identify hemoglobinuria. May be useful if serum is not obtainable or if an acute hemolytic reaction is suspected but the serum hemolgobin is negative. Not useful in extravascular hemolyiss. Hemoglobinuria must be differentiated from hematuria. For details, please read AABB Guidlines for the Laboratory Evaluation of Transfusion Reactions.

Hope that helps.

CK Cheng, MSc, SBB(ASCP), CQA(ASQ)

Hong Kong

Mar 25, 2009

The Transfusion Service Manual of Standard Operating Procedures, Training Guides, and Competence Assessment Tools by Lucia Berte is available through AABB. It offers procedures, flow charts, and a training competency for txn rxns as well as a lot of other basic BB tasks. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for basic building blocks on which to develop BB procedures, etc.

Rashmi, with a bit of luck, the two Powerpoint lectures I sent you should help!

Thanks Malcolm- it was wonderful...don't suppose you want to draw out a flow chart too???

Our Donor Center is about a 7min walk from the Transfusion Service and I am validating new coleman coolers to transport the components from the Donor Center to the Tranfusion Service. Once products are transported the Transfusion Service, staff can't always unpack and place the products in permanent storage right away so I'm vallidating the coolers for a max of 6 hrs.

My question is: Is there a standand out there or any reference as to how much dry ice to use to keep the temp of frozen plasma <-18c? the maximum number of FFP that will easily fit in my cooler is 20. Can I use a specified amout of dry ice no matter what the quantity of FFP? or do I specify: "use 1 lb of dry ice for greater than 10 units and 1/2 lb for coolers with less than 10 units...." I want to keep this simple.

Any thoughts?

You can call other donor center in region. I am sure they must have validated on hoe much dry ice to use fro packing. I know I get different amount of ice in teh boxes we receive from ARC based on number of units and the box size.

You might want to rethink the use of dry ice in a plastic cooler. There can be some serious safety issues with that. There have been cases where plastic coolers have exploded (and I don't have a specific case reference) but our system requires all dry ice containers be styrofoam. This also allows the CO2 gas to escape and not build up in the container.