Intraoperative Anemia and Single Red Blood Cell Transfusion During Cardiac Surgery: An Assessment of Postoperative Outcome Including Patients Refusing Blood Transfusion.

Objectives: Increasing evidence suggests benefits from restrictive red blood cell transfusion (RBC) thresholds in major surgery and critically ill patients. However, these benefits are not obvious in cardiac surgery patients with intraoperative anemia. The authors examined the association between uncorrected hemoglobin (Hb) levels and selected postoperative outcomes as well as the effects of RBCs.

Anti-K formation is not associated with the storage time of transfused red blood cells.

Background: The formation of red blood cell (RBC) antibodies could be enhanced by the presence of inflammation caused by prolonged RBC storage, as was shown in animal studies. The low occurrence (<10%) of K-antigen in most populations often enables identification of the K+ RBC unit that triggered anti-K formation and determination of its storage time. This study aims to quantify the association of anti-K formation with RBC storage time.

Tolerance of intraoperative hemoglobin decrease during cardiac surgery.

Background: It has been suggested that a decrease of at least 50% from the preoperative hemoglobin (Hb) level during cardiac surgery is associated with adverse outcomes even if the absolute Hb level remains above the commonly used transfusion threshold of 7.0 g/dL. In this study the relation between intraoperative Hb decline of at least 50% and a composite endpoint was analyzed.