[Autologous transfusion in heart surgery (apropos of 74 patients)].

The present study uses three techniques of autotransfusion in heart surgery under ECC: peroperative and post-ECC transfusion of blood removed after induction of anaesthesia (group I: 25 patients); postoperative transfusion of extravasated thoracic blood (group II: 24 patients) and a combination of the two (group III: 25 patients). Postoperative bleeding was comparable in all groups; A subset likely to haemorrhage made up of patients who had lost more than one litre of blood was isolated and demonstrated a reduction in the number of homologous red cell concentrates needed for the autotransfused population in comparison with the controls (2.4 +/- 2.