The cost of blood transfusion in Western Europe as estimated from six studies

Abstract

The estimated cost of transfusing 2 units of RBCs in Western Europe is significant. Differences in methodology were partially diffused by aggregation of prior estimates into a population-weighted mean. Future cost studies should follow the Cost of Blood Consensus Conference (COBCON) recommendation to apply activity-based costing methods.

Potential Cost Saving of Epoetin alfa in Elective Hip or Knee Surgery due to Reduction in Blood Transfusions and Their Side Effects: A Discrete-Event Simulation Model

“…Each patient who undergoes a transfusion accrues a cost for each unit of allogeneic blood transfused at a cost of €320 per unit [36]. All patients assigned to the PAD blood management strategy who are eligible to receive autologous blood transfusion incur a cost of €500 for the two units of blood donated and stored [37].…”

Patient Blood Management

“…Due to improved collection, testing and processing, the direct costs of blood products have progressively increased (Kamper-Jorgensen et al 2010 ;Abraham and Sun 2012 ). As stated in the introduction, the known and hidden costs have been estimated to be USD 2,000 (Ferraris et al 2012 ;Shander et al 2010 ) per RBC unit.…”

Introducing Blood Conservation Into Clinical Practice

“…[28][29][30] Toner et al 30 recently reported national mean acquisition costs of $210.74 (7$37.90) per unit of erythrocytes with considerable variation based on geography and facility. In the surgical setting, Shander et al 31 reported on activity-based costs associated with erythrocyte transfusion and found that expenses were generally underestimated by three-to four-fold from acquisition costs.…”