Narrative review of strategies for blood product shelf‐life extension

Over 90% of potentially survivable United States (U.S.) battlefield fatalities are associated with severe hemorrhage, underscoring the importance of early prehospital blood transfusion to improve survival outcomes.Future near-peer conflicts, such as Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO), will introduce new challenges, including increased severity of injury patterns, delayed evacuations, and limited resupply of blood products.In such environments, finding innovative ways to prolong the shelf-life of blood products is critical to ensuring the distribution of an adequate blood supply across operational theaters.This narrative review focuses on current and future methods to extend the shelf-life of blood products.Many of the highlighted blood products are still in the development pipeline pending regulatory approval and may help support future blood banking constraints or augment whole blood use during times of surge.