2018 Volume 67 Issue 1 Pages 65-69
Autologous blood transfusion has a lower risk of adverse events than allogeneic blood transfusion, and collection of the patients’ own blood is recommended before surgery. In recent years, autologous blood transfusion has been on a downward trend. We statistically analyzed data on blood transfusion carried out in our hospital from 2007 to 2015 and examined the medical records of patients who underwent autologous blood collection in 2012–2014, including the underlying disease, operative procedure, use of allogeneic blood, percentage of wasted bags of blood, administration of erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA) and iron supplementation, fluid replacement, and frequency of vasovagal reaction (VVR). In addition, we investigated the situation in each clinical department that performed autologous blood transfusion. Examined were 367 patients from whom 671 bags of blood were collected. Median age of the patients was 39 years (range, 8–91). ESA was administered to patients younger than 40 years with 2 or more blood collection events (p < 0.05). Allogeneic blood transfusion was avoided in 96.7% of patients with 236 (35.2%) bags wasted. The number of autologous blood transfusions has decreased by 46.7% since 2007, because the departments of urology and cardiovascular surgery no longer performed this type of transfusion. In patients who underwent radical prostatectomy, robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy significantly reduced blood loss compared with laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (150 mL vs 1,050 mL, p < 0.001). The introduction of bloodless surgery contributed to the decrease in the number of autologous blood transfusions in the department of urology. The department of cardiovascular surgery avoided autologous blood transfusion upon termination of service for autologous blood preparation at the Red Cross blood center. In contrast, autologous blood transfusion is used preferably and tended to increase in number in the department of orthopedics, suggesting a turning point for an upward trend as a whole.
