Most of the time we get blood, which has been stored in the blood bank with the help of preservative like-citrate phosphate dextrose (CPD) for 21-day storage, CPD-adenine for 35-day storage, and the current generation of additive solutions that permit storage for 42 days. Stored blood, of course, comes to our rescue when in nee but certain problems like reduction in 2,3 BPG concentration, hyperkalemia etc. Fresh blood is not readily available, to settle this issue few studies have been done.
The INFORM trial (Informing Fresh versus Old Red Cell Management) randomly assigned 20,858 hospitalized adults with type A or O blood to receive shorter (mean, 13 days) versus longer (mean, 24 days) storage duration blood and found no difference in mortality (9.1 versus 8.7 percent) or in length of hospital stay (10 days in both arms). There are two smaller randomized trials in adults viz. ABLE…
