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- Complications Of Blood Administration |
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Coagulopathy:
There's
a handful of reasons that a blood transfusion can cause clotting problems.
The foremost
is that when blood is not super-fresh (< 24 hours old) it no longer contains
any functioning platelets or clotting factors. As if this alone was not
bad enough, when the banked blood is mixed into the patients blood, the
patient's own numbers of useable platelets and clotting factors becomes diluted,
and therefore are less effective. Next,
the citrate that is used to prevent blood from coagulating binds to
circulating calcium and can lead to hypocalcemia. ...Low calcium can cause
bleeding. Also,
cold blood transfusions can lead to hypothermia, which prolongs clotting time
and facilitates bleeding. Finally,
as the patient's own body recognizes the depletion and dilution of its own
clotting factors, intrinsic mechanisms of production increases. This can
in some cases lead to DIC.
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