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