Blood conservation techniques for cardiac surgery: a survey of French centres.

A survey resulting from a partnership between CECEC (Centre d'Etudes en Circulation Extra-Corporelle) and Laboratoires Hoechst, France was carried out amongst all French adult cardiac surgery centres. The aim of this study was to investigate the various strategies used to decrease blood loss during open-heart surgery. Due to an exceptionally high response rate, we are able to report the current practice of French cardiac centres which account for 75% of open-heart adult surgery. The three most interesting strategies for blood conservation appear to be haemodilution, blood salvage from the extracorporeal circuit and previously deposited autologous blood transfusion, yet the three methods which are predominantly used are haemodilution (92.7%), aprotinin therapy (87.8%) and blood salvage from the extracorporeal circuit (82.9%).