This ultimately means that we need to preserve the blood, and this requires a combination of preservatives to prevent clotting and keep the cellular components fresh, and refrigeration to avoid bacterial growth.
We need bankable blood for use when the need arises. That is just not practical for civilian use. The military has been able to use fresh warm whole blood donated by soldiers which has been stored for just a few hours. Then why can’t we just switch back to whole blood? That’s what our trauma patients are losing, right? Unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated than that.
Although when mixed together the final unit of reconstituted blood looks like whole blood, it’s not. So why doesn’t component therapy work so well for trauma? Refer to the following diagram. We’ve been using fractionated blood components in medicine, and trauma specifically, for over 50 years.
