Current medical procedures involve blood collection and storage. Blood transfusion is used to save lives during operations in critical injuries and even during the treatment of many diseases like anemia and cancer. Proper techniques of blood collection and storage help in the survival and safety of patients. The paper presents the concepts and methodology behind the collection of blood, storage of blood methodologies as well as how these procedures became commonplace around the world in healthcare systems.
Donors are thus screened for diseases and behavior patterns that may endanger the safety of their blood. These include checking malaria, hepatitis, and HIV among infectious diseases, blood pressure, anemia, and many others.
Two of the primary methods used for blood collection include apheresis, where the blood is broken into its components, such as the platelets or plasma, and returned to the donor along with the remaining parts, and whole blood donation, where the blood is collected in its whole form.
The safety of the donor should be of prime importance. The whole process takes place under qualified professionals, and the attention to sanitation equipment, pain reduction, and post-donation care such as hydration, among other things, such as watching out for dizziness or fainting, are paid.
While plasma can be frozen at -18°C or lower to preserve the clotting factors for up to one year, red blood cells can be preserved at 2–6°C for 42 days maximum. Platelets, which are kept at room temperature, must be moved around quite often to prevent clumping.
Solutions like CPDA-1 (Citrate Phosphate Dextrose Adenine) increase the shelf life of red blood cells as these solutions feed and buffer the blood. In this regard, solutions minimize hemolysis while maintaining the integrity of the cells when it comes to storage.
Blood products are kept under sterile conditions to avoid any kind of bacterial contamination. To ensure that the blood remains safe for transfusion purposes, blood banks carry out periodic checks of the temperature, sterility, and storage time of the blood. Protocol violations may mean that contaminated blood products would have to be destroyed.
RBCs, or red blood cells, are widely used in the treatment of anemia, blood loss due to trauma, and pre-operative preparation. RBCs should be kept refrigerated to prevent degradation and preserve their oxygen-carrying capabilities.
Patients with coagulation disorders or oncologic patients who are on chemotherapy, an agent that decreases the patient's natural platelet levels, need platelets. Platelets are useful only if they are handled and stored specially.
It consists of clotting factors and essential proteins, which are contained in the plasma of blood. They usually use this for patients suffering from serious burns, those with extreme liver diseases, or who are transfused very frequently. Plasma is often used for the preparation of clotting factor concentrates. This can also be frozen to make storage over time easier.
The situation is very critical for the period of blood shortages during pandemics, catastrophes, and natural disasters. Affordability and accessibility of blood transfusion create a pressing need for more contributions and efficient utilization of available resources.
Since blood components have relatively short shelf lives, controlling the distribution of such supply may become complicated to ensure they are consumed before they expire. Platelets, for example, expire after five days, yet red blood cells last for 42 days.
There are two ethical issues at play: taking blood from specific populations and assuring that the procedure is voluntary and non-exploitative. Policies on blood donations should recognize the rights of donors and accord pride of place to the safety and dignity of participants.
Modern health care consists of blood donation and storage, saving millions of lives each year. In the health sector, blood banks and health professionals ensure the safety, viability, and availability of the blood when it is needed through strict procedures and high-tech technology. Blood collection and storage are most likely to have a remarkable development if such research and development keep on emerging, solving some of today's problems and making it easier and better to have blood products around the world.