Smaller blood-collection tubes to reduce red blood cell transfusion (STRATUS trial)
Cumulatively, daily labs on hospitalized patients deplete substantial volumes of blood, almost all of which is wasted. The 4 to 6 mL of blood drawn per standard tube is a legacy of older equipment: modern testing machines only need <0.5 mL per sample, and the rest is discarded. More blood is drawn and discarded the next day, and the next, and the next—wasting about a unit of whole blood per week from each patient in the ICU.
By one estimate, 25 million liters (6.6 million gallons) of blood are wasted in this fashion, every year—enough to fill about 700 railroad tanker cars with blood, or about four times the total amount of blood transfused annually.
Smaller-volume blood collection tubes are widely available at equivalent cost and are compatible with standard blood analyzers. They have a less-powerful vacuum that removes about half as much blood per tube. But apparently, few centers use them, because … well, no one can give a good reason why.
In one of those “how has this not been don…
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