Should You Bank Your Own Blood Before Surgery?

If you’re scheduled for major surgery and have the potential of needing a blood transfusion, you may be concerned about the possibility of contracting a blood borne virus. To counteract this possibility, some patients are choosing to bank their own blood to be used in the event a transfusion is needed. Is banking your own blood worth the time and cost?

First you should consider the type of surgery you’ll be undergoing. Certain surgeries are more likely to lead to the requirement for blood transfusion. These include hip replacement, open heart surgery, lung surgery, and bowel surgery. If you’re scheduled for a simple hernia repair, chances are you won’t require blood, making banking your own blood unnecessary.

Next, you should consider your risk of potentially contracting a blood borne virus such as AIDS or hepatitis if you require a transfusion during surgery. The risk of getting an infection from donated blood is quite low due to the rigorous screening standards used for controlling blood that enters the supply available for transfusions. Although testing procedures for detecting the AIDS virus is excellent, there’s still a window period where a person can be carrying the AIDS virus and still manifest a negative blood test. There’s also the concern of contracting Hepatitis B and C as well as the rare neurological disease Creutzfeldt-Jakob syndrome which is transmitted via prions in the bloodstream.

Still, the risk of contracting any of these diseases through a blood transfusion in modern times is highly unlikely with the sophisticated level of testing available and the structured guidelines for blood donation and testing endorsed by the F.D.A.

You’ll also need to consider the time and cost of if you choose to bank your own blood. If you make the decision to donate and store your own blood, you must take iron supplements and make room in your schedule for donations. Plus, your banked blood can only be stored for a few weeks prior to your scheduled surgery. Since it can take up to a month to replace the blood you lost due to the banking, you may have a lower blood reserve during your surgery which could increase the likelihood of ultimately needing a transfusion. The cost of banking your own blood can also be prohibitive for some people, running as high as $200 per unit of blood donated and banked.

It also should be remembered that the greatest risk associated with blood transfusion is the possibility of a transfusion reaction. This occurs when you are given blood that’s incompatible with your system. Blood is carefully cross typed and matched prior to being used in a blood transfusion but, rarely, mislabeling can occur which can cause a patient to receive the wrong blood. When you bank your own blood, you still may not be protected against a transfusion reaction since your blood could still be mislabeled or confused with another unit of blood at the time of transfusion. When you bank your own blood, it doesn’t necessarily protect you against a transfusion reaction.

If you’re having surgery and are uncomfortable with the possibility of receiving donated blood, banking your own blood can be a consideration, but with the sophistication of viral testing on donated blood and the cost and time hassles involved when you bank your own blood, it may not be worth the additional effort.