Discussion
This 5-year retrospective analysis gives an overview of blood transfusion use in our tertiary ENT, Head and Neck centre. A large proportion of patients (42.2%) and RBC units transfused (43.9%) were primarily due to emergency presentations of epistaxis. The majority of elective blood transfusions were in the post-operative period making up 40% (36/90) of total cases and 42.8% (80/187) of total units transfused. Over the study period, there has been a decrease in the overall demand for ENT RBC transfusions in our centre, which reflects the downward trend of demand for RBC transfusions nationally.3