We report a recent experience of post-transfusion graft versus host disease (GVHD) after replacement with Y-shaped prosthetic graft in a patient with impending ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.
An 84-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of a lower abdominal pain. The patient was diagnosed as impending ruptured aneurysm of the abdominal aorta, and an emergency operation was performed by replacement with Y-shaped prosthetic gragt. As the volume of blood loss was 1, 487ml during the operation, then, five units of fresh blood, five units of preserved blood and eight units of fresh frosen plasm were transfused.
The postoperative course was well until he had taken of fever, eruption and leukopenia on the eighth day. It was diagnosed with post-transfusion GVHD. He had died on the fourteenth day without any good reaction against our treatments.
Almost all patients with post-transfusion GVHD die soon when they take of it, since there is no effective treatment method for it at the present time. The only method for prevention from this disease is to irradiate the blood before transfusion. Therefore, it is of importance to establish a nationwide system to irradiate the blood for transfusion following the collection.