Autotransfusion Devices Industry to Witness Substantial Growth in The Coming Years

There are several reasons a person might need to undergo blood transfusion treatment. It may be a severe liver infection that affects the person’s capacity of producing blood or an infection that causes anemia, such as kidney disorder or cancer. Moreover, in cases of accident, a person might experience serious internal bleeding which requires substituting the lost blood with fresh donor blood, but this is not always possible. In urban locations or the areas that have an absence of healthcare services, donor blood may not be available always.

Replacement for blood transfusion

To tackle all these issues, scientists and doctors have invented an innovative technique called autotransfusion—which can be used as a substitute for the traditional blood transfusion method. Autotransfusion of blood is a process in which a person gives his/her blood for transfusion, rather than taking it from banked allogenic blood. Using this technique, the blood in the body cavity of a patient, postoperatively drained blood, or blood lost during a surgical procedure can be recovered by means of a blood recovery instrument called as autotransfusion device. The guidelines by the American Association of Blood Banks indicate that intraoperative or postoperative autotransfusion should be done in surgical treatments which involves excessive bleeding (more than 20% total volume). In intraoperative autotransfusion, the lost blood is recovered in an extracorporeal circuit during surgery. Whereas, in postoperative autotransfusion, the lost blood is recovered in the extracorporeal circuit at the end of surgery or from aspirated drainage.

Benefits and uses of autotransfusion devices

Generally, an autotransfusion device is used in cases wherein the body loses one or more units of blood and can be most beneficial in cases that involve risk of transmission of infectious disease, rare blood groups, limited homologous blood supply or other medical conditions for which the usage of homologous blood is contraindicated. A major drawback of this device is its cost. The hardware that is used for processing the blood is complex and can charge around $40,000 or more. The disposable software is also expensive and a qualified, dedicated operator is required to run this device. Sustaining the availability of autotransfusion services especially during second and third shifts and weekends is a major problem associated with this technique.

Nowadays, the rising inconsistency between blood supply and demand has led to the growing popularity and adoption of autologous blood transfusion (ABT). Also, the increased safety and efficiency offered by this technique is resulting in its increased usage all across the world. This process avoids the risks caused by allogeneic blood transfusion, lessens blood shortage, saves blood resources, and eases the burden of patients. Hence, the demand for ABT in clinical practice is increasing day by day, and gaining more importance all over the world.

Additionally, the use of autotransfusion devices eliminates the risk of transmission of infectious diseases such as hepatitis, malaria, AIDS etc. Also, with this technique, there is no danger of isosensitization. Furthermore, autologous blood guarantees a better oxygen transfer, enhanced activities of coagulation factors, elimination of pretransfusion inspections, eradicates blood shortage problems and reduces the use of homologous blood.

Apart from this, autotransfusion devices are used in various application areas including Ambulatory surgical centers, Hospitals, Emergency Centers, Nursing Homes, and other healthcare service centers. Hence, the growing usage of such advanced autotransfusion techniques is expected to fuel the growth of the autotransfusion devices industry in the near future.

Growing adoption of auto-transfusion devices

Currently, many surgeons are using autotransfusion with a cell processing step. Cell processing systems use a vacuum to aspirate blood from the surgical site to a cardiotomy reservoir. The blood is mixed with citrate or heparin while it is being collected in order to avoid coagulation. The anticoagulated blood is then mixed with saline solution and centrifuged at about 4800 rpm. This procedure eliminates almost 90% of the supernatant hemoglobin, citrate, heparin, activated complement, and proteins such as albumin and clotting factors. The final washed red blood cell product has a hematocrit of 55-60%.

There are numerous advantages of whole blood intraoperative autotransfusion. This process recovers platelets and proteins, such as albumin and clotting factors with the oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Furthermore, the process does not require a scheduling system for cell processors as the entire blood system is instantly available and time required for arranging the entire system is minimal. Due to these factors, the demand for autotransfusion devices from patients and hospitals in increasing significantly. Therefore, it is expected that the autotransfusion device market will show a substantial growth in the upcoming years. Also, a report by Research Dive has stated that the global market for autotransfusion devices will generate a revenue of $1,939.7 million by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 6.5% from 2019 to 2027.

Growing investments for the development of autotransfusion devices

Several major companies in Autotransfusion Device are greatly investing in R&D for attaining competitive advantage over their competitors. For instance—in 2019, BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), a worldwide leader in medical technology, declared its recent development in Combating Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) with new analytics combined into the company’s connected medication management platform that recognizes when a potentially ineffective and inappropriate antibiotic gets prescribed, depending on the detailed diagnosis of patient’s infection.

Apart from this company, there are several other companies in the autotransfusion market which are making efforts to grow their business through strategic collaborations, partnerships, new product developments, and acquisitions. Some of these companies include Becton Dickinson and Company, Medtronic Plc, Zimmer Biomet Holding, LivaNova, Plc, Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA, Terumo Corporation, Stryker Corporation, Haemonetics Corporation, Teleflex Incorporated, and Getinge AB. In October 2019, Medtronics PLC, headquartered in Dublin acquired AV Medical Technologies which is an Israeli medical technology company. Hence, looking at the activities of several market players in this market it is clear that the autotransfusion devices market will observe substantial growth in the near future.