Platelet usage trends in a tertiary care hospital - Could it be less and less expensive?

Major bleeding is a life threatening complication of severe thrombocytopenia. The aim of this study was to find out the indications and the threshold for platelet transfusions in the pediatric patients of our hospital throughout 1 year. Records of the hospital's blood bank and the files of the patients were retrospectively reviewed. One hundred and four patients, between ages 0-18 years received 378 platelet units. Pretransfusion platelet counts were found to be significantly lower in hematology-oncology groups compared to other clinics (p < 0.05). Single donor apheresis was found to be the major source of platelets in hematology (80.8%, n = 147) and oncology (86.5%, n = 45) clinics. There is a tendency for using apheresis products without proven superiority compared to platelet concentrates in terms of efficacy. This practice can be abandoned by continuous education.