To the Editor:-Regarding the recent Practice Guidelines for blood component therapy, I have a suggestion concerning the use of fresh-frozen plasma. If, after excessive bleeding and massive transfusion of erythrocytes, the addition of fresh-frozen plasma becomes necessary, we use the fresh frozen plasma from the same donor. We think that the fresh-frozen plasma from the same donor is the best fresh-frozen plasma you can give a patient who has already received the blood cells from this blood donation. Our blood donation center always separates erythrocytes and fresh-frozen plasma. It gives the same registration number to the erythrocyte unit and the fresh-frozen plasma and then stores the fresh-frozen plasma according to the registration numbers. When we need fresh-frozen plasma, we tell the blood donation center the number of the fresh-frozen plasma we want (which is the number of the erythrocyte unit already given). We think this is the better way to use fresh-frozen plasma than to add something toxic to the fresh-frozen plasma (methylene blue with ultraviolet-radiation or chemicals in the hope of killing viruses). The above has been used for 10 yr in our hospital without problems and with very low costs.
Paul Gunter, M.D., M.P., Chairman, Department of Anesthesiology, Hospital of Interlaken, CH 3800 Interlaken, Switzerland.
(Accepted for publication August 21, 1996.)
