A nurse is caring for a client requiring surgery and is ordered to have a standby blood secured if in case a blood transfusion is needed during or after procedure. The nurse suggests to client to do which of following to lessen risk of possible transfusion reaction?

Correct Answer: C. Do an autologous blood donation.

A donation of your own blood is autologous. Doing this will prevent the risk of transfusion reaction. Autologous blood transfusion is the collection of blood from a single patient and retransfusion back to the same patient when required. This is in contrast to allogeneic blood transfusion where blood from unrelated/anonymous donors is transfused to the recipient. The primary driving forces for the use of autologous blood transfusion are to reduce the risk of transmission of infection and to protect an increasingly scarce resource.

• Option A: More recently, concerns have focussed on the blood-borne transmission of variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD). In 2004, case reports emerged of presumed transmission of vCJD via allogeneic blood transfusion. Unlike hepatitis and HIV, there is no effective screening test and the disease has a variable and often prolonged asymptomatic incubation period.
• Option B: As oral iron supplementation requires a significant amount of time, when the interval before surgery is sufficient (at least 6–8 weeks) and no contraindications are present, supplementation with oral iron and nutritional advice may be appropriate for mild-to-moderate IDA and/or nonanemic ID or insufficient iron stores.
• Option D: Allogeneic donor blood is becoming an increasingly costly and scarce resource. As demand for blood is outstripping donation, there is a real social and economic pressure to increase the proportion of blood transfused by autologous transfusion.