Chest pain associated with a blood transfusion is an uncommon complaint (less than 1% of transfusion reactions).
In most cases the chest pain occurred within 2.5 hours of starting the transfusion (blood, platelets).
Key conditions to exclude:
(1) hemolytic transfusion reaction
(2) myocardial ischemia (with elevation of serum troponin concentration and/or ECG changes)
(3) transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI)
In most cases neither of these 2 conditions are implicated and no clear explanation is found.
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Specialty: Clinical Laboratory