Blood transfusions after cardiac surgery – are they necessary?
Blood transfusions carried out after cardiac surgery could be unnecessary and might cause health complications for patients. Thanks to a £1 million grant by the National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA) programme a new research study will investigate this issue. In the UK, cardiac surgery uses almost ten per cent of all donor blood. Although the benefits of red cell blood transfusions for managing life-threatening bleeding are clear, the majority of decisions to transfuse after surgery are made on the basis of a patient’s haemoglobin level (a measure of the ability of the blood to transport oxygen around the body). The level that causes a doctor to transfuse a patient varies widely and research in non-cardiac surgical fields has shown that lowering the level that ‘triggers’ transfusion reduces complications as well as the use of blood. Barnaby Reeves, Professorial Research Fellow in Health Services Research at the University of Bristol and Gavin Mur
