Concept of Patient Blood Management

Abstract

Blood transfusion has gradually become safer, though it is still associated with complications such as immune reactions and transfusion-associated circulatory overload and prognosis. The patient blood management（PBM）program allows avoidance of allogeneic blood transfusion as much as possible. In PBM, preoperative assessment of anemia, iron deficiency, and antithrombotic therapy are performed, followed by correction of anemia and coagulopathy. To minimize intraoperative blood loss, surgical strategy and anesthetic management should be considered beforehand. To reduce postoperative bleeding, it is important to maintain and monitor body temperature as well as oxygen levels and proper drug interventions, if necessary. Even if blood transfusion is inevitable, appropriate and minimum transfusion should be considered in such cases.