Artificial Blood : An Arterial Blood Gas

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Scientists have been trying to create artificial blood since 1883 (Indian J Crit Care Med. 2008 Jul-Sep). Using real blood for medical causes has it’s problems, the blood used must be compatible with the patient, if it is not, it can cause sickness to the patient and their condition may escalate. This is just one of the many complications with using real blood. Red Blood Cells, White Blood Cells, Plasma and Platelets are the main products extracted from donated blood, each of these products are used for something different and need to be included when artificial blood is created.
Technologies centred around artificial blood include an Arterial Blood Gas Analyser and a Pulse Oximeter, these technologies allow measurements of oxygen saturation and carbon dioxide concentrations in blood which helps evaluate the ventilation, oxygenation, acid-base levels and oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood. The development of artificial blood can eradicate any problems with blood transfusions in the future as an inexpensive and risk free alternative.
An Arterial Blood Gas Analysis (ABGA) measures the oxygen saturation and carbon dioxide concentrations in blood, which indicates, how efficiently the lungs are distributing the carbon dioxide and oxygen to and from blood. (Medical Dictionary. 2003). It is an invasive machine that takes a small sample of blood from an artery and measures the oxygen levels using two electrodes; these electrodes produce an electric current after the oxygen has flown between them and through a membrane. The current produced is proportional to the volume of oxygen in the blood. However it is the pH levels of blood that measures the carbon dioxide concentrations.
Knowing the blood’s pH levels, oxygen saturation and car...

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...herefore needs to be free of pathogens before it can be used. Finally, it must be compatible with the patient otherwise other illnesses may occur. Without research scientists wouldn’t have been able to look into donated blood and therefore they wouldn’t have began to develop artificial blood, making a doctors job much more difficult than it can be with this alternative way of transfusing blood.
This report is proven to be reliable as I used many different sources from the internet, to text books, to HSC online. Before I used my information I made sure that the facts given were relatively the same on different sites. If the information was different I did not use it, and looked for stronger confirmation to back up my statements. In text references were used to show where I got certain material from, therefore giving further evidence that this information is reliable.

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