Fiabilidad del hematocrito postransfusional

Since the blood transfusion diseases, basically AIDS, have arisen in our society, the decision to administer a transfusion to a patient not only requires an informed consent but also must be fully justified and documented. This implies that, except for emergencies, the hematocrit value must be measured previously. However, if the patient has just received a transfusion and due to the phenomenon of hemoconcentration, the reliability of this analysis during the first hours following the transfusion period is questionable. In fact, and according to the health care site in question, this time varies from a half hour to up to six hours. Not in vain, up to now, we only have one study that approaches this subject applying the scientific method, although it is limited to pediatrics. Our research team has established the purposes of «knowing the variations of the post-transfusional hematocrit in relationship with time», beginning with the hypothesis «the post-transfusional hematocrit value does not undergo relevantmodifications as a consequence of the passing of time.» Based on the quantitative approach, we designed an experimental study in which we considered the hematocrit value as the dependent variable and time as the independent variable. As a result, we obtain that the comparison between the immediate analysis and the subsequent ones does not offer statistically significant differences. We conclude that it is possible to make the analysis coinciding with the end of the transfusion, with total reliability.