Abstract
Hemodilutional autologous blood transfusion (HAT) is useful for avoidance of homologous blood transfusion during surgery. The HAT can be carried out more easily rather than other autotransfusions. We evaluated the clinical usefulness and efficacy of the HAT in 196 patients, in whom posterolateral fusion (PLF) of the lumbar spine was performed, in this study. The patients were divided into two groups. Group 1 is composed of 99 cases with HAT and Group 2 is composed of 97 cases without HAT. In the Group 1, 1, 086±24ml (500-1, 600ml) of autologous blood was collected immediately before the operation. No significant difference was noted in the operative duration between the two groups, but the surgical blood loss exceeded in the Group 1. Both the loss of red blood cells and amount of homologous blood used, however, were significantly less in the Group 1 than those in the Group 2, respectively. Homologous blood transfusion was avoided actually in 60 cases of the Group 1 and contrary in 27 cases of the Group 2. The HAT, which can prevent transfusion-transmitted diseases and immunoreaction after homologous blood infusion, is promised to be used more often in the future.
