The last time you gave blood your Hct was 40% and your hemoglobin was 14 g%. Tha

Question

The last time you gave blood your Hct was 40% and your hemoglobin was 14 g%. That was about 3 months ago. In the blood bank they determined you are type A-. Today you have been in an accident and your doctors suspect internal bleeding. They took a sample of your blood and found a Hct of 25%.

A. What would you expect your hemoglobin to be?

B. Can you tell how much blood you’ve lost? If you cannot, why not?

C. Can you determine the fraction of blood that you’ve lost?

D. What types of blood can you receive without a transfusion reaction?

Explanation / Answer

A)

Hb / Hb 0 = Hct / Hct 0

Hb = Hb 0 x Hct / Hct

      = 14 g %   x 25 / 40

      = 8.75 g %

B) You cannot tell how much blood you’ve lost because you do not know how much total blood was in the system

C) The fraction of blood lost should be approximately in the fraction of hematocrit lost.

You lost 15 /40 of the blood volume, or 37.5%.

This calculation assumes the blood volume has been 100% recovered by influx of fluid from the extravascular compartments.

D) The blood types that can be transfused without reaction include A- and O-

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