How many RP patients need a blood transfusion at the time of operation?
I doubt there is any definitive study on this, that can actually quote percentages. But whenever you are working near a high pressure structure like the aorta–there is the potential for bleeding. Most heart surgery centers will use a process during surgery called cell saver. The blood from the operative field is salvaged and spunned down and filtered and the red cells are returned to the patient. The other problem with RP is that it is a long procedure, and the patient is on the heart lung machine for a longer period of time, that causes damage to platelets. The less functional platelets around in the blood stream there is an increased risk of some generalized oozing or slow bleeding. We always have 4 units of packed red blood cells and 1 unit of platelet pheresis set up for all our RP patients. If the patient or family does not donate then, that blood comes from the Red Cross. I would say that it is infrequent that we give blood to RP patients, part of the reason is that the PR patie
