Uncorrected Proof Mod Care J. 2020 January; 17(1):e97586. Published online 2020 February 9. doi: 10.5812/modernc.97586. Research Article Determination of Blood Component Utilization Pattern in Zahedan City, Southeast of Iran Ebrahim Miri-Moghaddam 1, * , Atefe Tahmasemi 2 , Shaghaygh Khedria 2 and Sohaila Khosravi 3 1 Department of Hematology and Blood Banking, School of Allied Medicine, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran 2 Students Scientific Research Center, School of Allied Medicine, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran 3 Blood Transfusion Research Center, High Institute for Research and Education in Transfusion Medicine, Zahedan, Iran * Corresponding author: Cardiovascular Disease Research Center and Department of Hematology and Blood Banking, School of Allied Medicine, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran. Tel/Fax: +98-5632381230, Email: moghaddam4@yahoo.com Received 2019 August 29; Revised 2020 January 20; Accepted 2020 January 26. Abstract Background: Predicting future blood requirements and optimizing current transfusion practices require information on blood product utilization. Objectives: The aim was to determine the pattern of blood component utilization in Zahedan, the capital city of Sistan and Balouch- estan province in the southeastern part of Iran. Methods: This descriptive study was conducted from March to August 2015. Blood bank data were collected from seven hospitals. Moreover, the archived blood request forms were studied for the demographic data of blood receivers. Results: Overall, 13312 blood request forms (30418 requested blood units) were studied. The mean age of the recipients was 24.3 ± 20 and 38.9% of them were of the O blood group, followed by B (28.8%). Packed cell (PC) units were the most commonly used products (36.7%), followed by leuko-reduced red cells (25.4%), fresh frozen plasma (FFP) (16.8%), platelets (15.2%), cryoprecipitate (3.2%), and washed red cells (2.5%). The major users of blood components were the thalassemia wards (38.7%). Among the blood components, the highest wastage was related to PC with 32.3%, followed by FFP with 22.5%. The highest rate of wastage was recorded in the surgery (1,081 units) and emergency (784 units) wards for PC products and CCUs (376 units) and ICUs (167 units) for FFP products. Conclusions: A high rate of blood wastage was observed in the use of PC and FFP units. Increased awareness of physicians and medical students leads to proper blood consumption in the future. The Hospital Blood Transfusion Committee should review blood transfusion guidelines to optimize blood consumption. Keywords: Blood Transfusion, Blood Component, Packed Cell, Fresh Frozen Plasma, Platelets, Cryoprecipitate 1. Background Blood and blood-derived products are used frequently as therapeutics, especially in hospitalized patients. Suffi- ciency in blood products needs appropriate recruitment of blood donors, as well as optimized collection and stor- age systems. Serious shortcomings are observed in blood management facilities regarding the delivery of sufficient blood units to patients in need, especially in third world nations. According to a report by the World Health Orga- nization, in a sample of 1000 people, the blood donation rates were only 8.1 and 4.4 in lower-middle-income and low-income countries, respectively (1). In addition to lim- ited blood resources, unnecessary blood derivative trans- fusion is a major cause of insufficient blood available for patients who are in need (1). Among the most common reasons for leaving blood units unused are inappropriate storage conditions (such as compromised blood bags), ex- piration of blood units, and unsafe blood products (dis- coloration, clotting, etc.) (2). Furthermore, the expense of blood derivative preparation increases constantly and an unnecessary financial burden is imposed on the health care system in case of the inappropriate use of blood com- ponents (3). Population aging will make the number of eligible blood donors inadequate in the near future. Re- searchers’ efforts have been directed toward the safety and proper utilization of blood products to overcome these problems. Providing an adequate amount of blood derivatives to meet the high demands of the population needs a sophis- ticated system to optimize all blood management proce- dures from resources to receivers. Implementing a pro- gram to increase efficiency in the blood management sys- tem initially requires an understanding of the current con- dition and information about practical blood usage. The Copyright © 2020, Modern Care Journal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited.