Abstract 35

G. Gaslini Children's Hospital in Genoa (Italy) has 500 beds and 25 departments. The Blood Bank collects 1600 liters of plasma per year (mean through 1995-1997 years). Ten per cent of plasma was collected by separation from whole blood and 90% by plasmapheresis. The plasma obtained by this latter method can be separated into subunits. The risk of infection decreases if subunits are given to a single patient but increases if they are used for several patients. A mean of 80% of the plasma was administered to the patients and 20% was given back to the blood bank. The total amount of plasma requested by the hospital departments, the amount of the plasma actually used and the mean (mL) administered to the patients are reported in the Table. The requests for the plasma were mainly justified to maintain the blood pressure and volume and to repair the hemostatic balance in different types of pathology. The highest amount of plasma per person was requested for plasmapheresis in patients submitted to bone marrow transplantation complicated by microangiopathy. Some of these requests may be questionable. Moreover since none of the plasma units were previously virus inactivated we hope that a safer product will be available and that it will be used according specific guidelines.

Table 1 No caption available.
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