Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Blood Transfusion |
Blood TransfusionNoun1. The introduction of blood or blood plasma into a vein or artery. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definition |
Health | The administration of blood or blood products into a blood vessel. (references) |
Public Administration | The transferance of blood from a healthy donor or from stored blood to a person who has lost blood through injury or is anaemic through illness. Transfusion has to respect the compatibility of blood groups. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Blood transfusion is the taking of blood or blood-based products from one individual and inserting them into the circulatory system of another. It can be considered a form of organ transplant. It is performed as a treatment for various medical conditions, such as massive blood loss due to trauma, surgery, shock and other conditions in which tissues of the body are not adequately oxygenated, where carbon dioxide or other toxic materials are not being effectively removed, and where the red cell producing mechanism (or some other normal and essential component) fails.
Great care is taken to ensure that the recipient's immune system is compatible with the foreign blood, and also that the foreign blood is compatible with the donor's immune system. In addition to the familliar human blood type (A, B, AB and O) classifications and the Rhesus factor classification (positive or negative), today a number of other tissue type factors are also known to determine histocompatibility, to one degree or other. These tissue type factors become increasingly important in people who receive many blood transfusions as their bodies develop increasing resistance to blood from other people.
There is increased awareness that a number of diseases (such as AIDS, human T-Cell lymphotropic virus which causes a form of leukemia, syphilis, hepatitis B and hepatitis C) can be passed from the blood donor to the transfusion recipient, and tight human blood transfusion standards are the rule in all developed countries. Standards include screening for potential risk factors and health problems through such steps as the taking of blood pressure, determining if the donor has enough hemoglobin (the iron-containing protein in blood cells which enables efficient transport of oxygen), and answering a set of standard oral and written questions, as well as testing donated units for these infections. The lack of such standards in places like rural China where desperate villagers donated plasma for money and had others' red blood cells reinjected has produced entire villages infected with the AIDS virus.
Blood substitutes that will avoid this risk, address the chronic blood donor shortage and address some religious objections of groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, are currently in the clinical evaluation stage.
The entire process of donating blood takes about 45 minutes. About 450 ml is taken. Afterwards, the consumption of moderate amounts of non-alcoholic liquid refreshments is encouraged, as this assists with fluid replacement which occurs within a few hours. Other components are replaced by the donor's own body within a few days or weeks.
Depending on the needs of the community at any one time sometimes only parts of the blood are taken as a donation. Blood is made up mostly of red blood cells, platelets - essential in the normal clotting mechanism, and plasma. The latter two can be donated seperately in a process called ~apherisis. Blood is often separated into components after being donated. These components also include albumin protein used to treat burns, clotting factor concentrates used to treat hemophilia, cryoprecipitate, and immunoglobulin antibodies for immunological disorders.
In cases where whole blood is donated, there is no transfusion-related risk of illness for the blood donor, aside from the minuscule chance of infection or perhaps of localized injury to the donor site. There is some risk to the donor in cases where the donor donates plasma and has red blood cells reinfused. This risk is nonexistent in cases where proper sterilization procedures are followed, but has caused public health disasters in cases such as AIDS in central China where they were not often regulated. The best-known examples of safe apheresis donation are the United States' blood plasma collection centers, maintained by pharmaceutical companies, using paid donors up to twice-weekly.
Donations are usually anonymous to the recipient, but products in a blood bank are always individually traceable through the whole cycle of donation, testing, separation into components, storage, administration to the recipient, and any resultant disease.
It is interesting to note that veterinarians occasionally administer transfusions to animals in need of this treatment. Various species require different levels of testing to ensure a compatible match. Cats have 3 blood types, cattle have 11, dogs have a dozen, pigs 16 and horses have 34.
The rare and experimental practice of inter-species blood transfusions is a form of xenograft.
Research into blood substitutes which could make blood transfusions more readily available in emergency medicine and even in pre-hospital EMS care continues. If successful such a blood substitute could save many lives, particularly in traumas where massive blood loss results.
While it is not strictly a type blood transfusion, the formal practice of sealing a long term relationship through the co-mingling of blood to become blood brothers should be mentioned. This is a social ritual or custom, with no medical justification or indication. The practice carries with it a slight risk of blood born illness, infection or scarring.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Blood transfusion."
Synonym: Blood TransfusionSynonym: transfusion (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Blood Transfusion |
| English words defined with "blood transfusion": ABO blood group system, ABO group, ABO system ♦ hepatitis C ♦ Rh, Rh factor, rhesus factor. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "blood transfusion": Hemodilution. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | When I've finished with the Green Baize Vampire, he's gonna need a blood transfusion, a brain transplant and a set of National Health railings (Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire; writing credit: Trevor Preston) | |
Clever | Before giving a blood transfusion, find out if the blood is affirmative or negative. (references; author: unknown) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
| ||
Periodicals |
| ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | [Anatomy of the circulatory system with illustration of blood transfusion from animal to man]. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | Military: Field Medical Services : View showing medic giving blood transfusion to patient. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | Blood transfusion : Zeitgenössische Darstellung einer Bluttransfusion. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | The blood transfusion service would like to appeal. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | Production. Blood transfusion bottles. Assembling rubber closures for blood transfusion bottles. Nancy Synnestvedt (left), and Marjorie Holms, mother of a two-year-old child, are just a few of the many women performing vital war work at Baxter Laboratorie. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Formerly a sculptress and designer of tiles, Dorothy Cole converted her basement into a workshop to tin plate needles for valves for blood transfusion bottles prepared by Baxter Laboratories where she lives, Glenview, Ill. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Electric Institute of Washington. Battlefield blood transfusion. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | If he should fall is your blood there to save him? The emergency blood transfusion service needs blood donors / A. Games. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | By blood transfusion or organ transplant. (references) | |
Through blood transfusion or by organ transplant. (references) | ||
It is then given to the patient like an ordinary blood transfusion. (references) | ||
Business | Principal sources of clinical wastes include hospitals, health centers, veterinary surgeries, dental surgeries, GP surgeries, blood transfusion centers and public health laboratories. (references) | |
Economic History | Belarus | Completion of the renovation of the Gomel Regional Blood Transfusion Center in July of this year with a project cost of $475,000 marked the high point of this assistance. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
blood transfusion | 117 |
first blood transfusion | 4 |
blood transfusion autologous | 4 |
anemia blood transfusion | 4 |
blood transfusion complication | 4 |
blood transfusion side effects | 4 |
alternative blood transfusion | 3 |
blood transfusion video | 2 |
blood transfusion uk | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "blood transfusion"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | dhënie gjaku. (various references) | |
Danish | blodtransfusion (transfusion of blood). (various references) | |
Dutch | bloedtransfusie (transfusion of blood), transfusie (transfusion), Het door bemiddeling van een bloedtransfusiecentrum toedienen van bloed van een gezonde donor aan iemand die door een verwonding veel bloed heeft verloren of die aan anemie lijdt.Bij transfusie moeten de bloedgroepen van donor en ontvanger compatibel zijn. (various references) | |
Finnish | verensiirto. (various references) | |
French | transfusion de sang (transfusion of blood), transfusion (transfusion of blood). (various references) | |
German | Bluttransfusion (transfusion of blood), blutübertragung. (various references) | |
Greek | μετάγγιση αίματος (transfusion of blood). (various references) | |
Hungarian | vérátömlesztés (perfusion). (various references) | |
Italian | trasfusione sanguigna, transfusione di sangue (transfusion of blood). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 輸血 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ゆけつ. (various references) | |
Manx | tessen-chaghlaa folley. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | oodblay ansfusiontray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | transfusão de sangue (transfusion of blood). (various references) | |
Russian | мед)переливание крови, переливание крови (transfusion). (various references) | |
Spanish | transfusión de sangre (transfusion of blood). (various references) | |
Swedish | blodtransfusion. (various references) | |
Turkish | kan nakli (transfusion). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-b-d-f-i-l-n-n-o-o-o-r-s-s-t-u" | |
-4 letters: subornations, sulfonations. | |
-5 letters: absolutions, bloodstains, disulfotons, floribundas, foundations, nodulations, subornation, sulfonation, transfusion. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
