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Blood for blood

All health information to keep you up to date
8 June 2004, 18:00 PM
OPINION
By Dr. Rubaiul Murshed
8 June 2004, 18:00 PM
When you face a major road traffic accident, you often bleed tremendously and the most important and urgent need is 'blood'. There are a lot of severely injured trauma patients who die because of shock due to blood loss. In medicine, shock is a clinical condition in which the peripheral blood flow is inadequate to return sufficient blood to the heart for normal functions, particularly transport of oxygen to all organs. When serious accident victims arrive at the emergency department with severe blood loss, finding a blood type match can take up to 45-60 minutes on average, even in advanced countries. This could be the difference between life and death.

Some reputed centres in the US have started experimenting with artificial blood. There is reason to be proud that Bangladeshi scientists are involved in these new techniques. These centres are conducting trials of a new product which acts like real blood. It is a purified haemoglobin solution made from old red blood cells that fulfills a vital temporary role and buys valuable time. Doctors are anxiously waiting for this new scientific development; the expectation is that this invention will save the lives of many patients by immediately replacing blood that carries oxygen rich haemoglobin to the tissue.

Human blood is composed of cell-containing fluid or plasma in which there are red and white corpuscles, platelets, fat globules, and a great variety of chemical substances. Blood consists of about 22 per cent solids and 78 per cent water. It is pumped around our body by our heart and it travels through veins and arteries. An adult body contains something like 5-6 litres (70-80ml/kg of body weight)of blood, all of which is endlessly pumping around our body. Its main purpose is to deliver oxygen to cells.

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When cells are deprived of oxygen they die, blood pressure drops, organs unavoidably start to die, and ultimately the patient expires. Let us hope that in the near future doctors will be able to stabilise these emergency patients and reverse the effects of shock by replacing lost blood from this new and readily available artificial source.