[Preventive measures against transfusion-associated complications and side effects].

The current efforts and strategies have greatly helped reduce transfusion-associated risks. Indeed, the risk of being infected by a contaminated blood unit today is lower than that thirty years ago. This improvement is due to the introduction of nucleic acid testing (NAT). Compatibility testing is designed to ensure that the patient receives the intended units of red cell concentrate (RCC) and that transfusion will be effective with minimum risk of adverse reactions. The process includes ABO and Rh typing of patients, testing recipient serum for clinically important alloantibodies, and crossmatching donor red cells with recipient serum by a technique that detects serological incompatibility.