Relationship Between Hemoglobin Level and the Expiration Date of TransfusedBlood With the Death of Patients Admitted to the Intensive Care Unit

In this study, we aim to investigate the relationship of the numbers of daysuntil blood expiration and pre-transfusion hemoglobin level with mortality rate in patients admitted tothe intensive care unit (ICU) and received packed red blood cell (PRBC) transfusion.

This is a retrospective cross-sectional study that was performed in 2020 on 205patients admitted to the ICU of Al-Zahra Hospital in Isfahan, Iran in the past year and received PRBCtransfusion. Their demographic information as well as information about related to the blood such asthe number of days until PRBC expiration and pre-transfusion hemoglobin level were extracted from thepatient’s medical records.

The mean pre-transfusion hemoglobin level of patients was 10.53±2.8 g/dL. Male patients hadsignificantly higher hemoglobin level than female patients (P<0.05). Of 205 patients, 55(26.8%) hada death outcome. The mortality rate was significantly higher in males than in females (P<0.05). Thenumber of days until PRBC expiration was 11.52±3.71 days. It was not significantly different betweenthe deceased and surviving patients (P>0.05). Also, the hemoglobin level of the deceased patients wassignificantly lower than that of surviving patients (P<0.05). The patients with underlying diseases hadsignificantly lower pre-transfusion hemoglobin level and higher mortality.

The mortality rate among ICU patients received PRBC transfusion in the study hospitalis 26.8%.