Evidence-based red blood cell transfusion practices in cardiac surgery

Cardiac surgical patients are amongst the highest consumers of allogeneic red blood cells (RBC) due to the prevalence of anaemia and bleeding. Up until recently, there was a paucity of high quality evidence informing transfusion decisions in this patient group which led to wide-variability in transfusion decision making. The article reviews and critically analyses the available evidence for RBC transfusion in cardiac surgery, focusing on trials of transfusion triggers and age of blood, and provides suggestions for future research.

Source: Transfusion Medicine Reviews - June 21, 2017 Category: Hematology Authors: Nishith N Patel, Gavin J Murphy Source Type: research