Original articlePostoperative intravenous iron used alone or in combination with low-dose erythropoietin is not effective for correction of anemia after cardiac surgery
Section snippets
Material and methods
The local hospital ethical committee approved the study protocol. An informed consent was obtained from all the patients preoperatively. Between August 1998 and December 1999, 120 American Society of Anesthesiologists II or III patients, who underwent elective cardiac surgery using cardiopulmonary bypass and in whom postpump hemoglobin ranged between 7 and 10 g/dL, were enrolled in a prospective randomized study.
Exclusion criteria were transfusion of allogeneic blood intraoperatively, pts with
Results
No mortality was noted in this series, and all pts could be followed for at least 30 days postoperatively. There were no significant differences among the 3 groups with regards to age, weight, sex, preoperative Hb level, and postoperative bleeding (Table 1). Twenty-six pts (26/120 = 22%) were transfused and excluded from the study: 9 pts (9/40 = 22%) in group I (placebo), 10 pts (10/40 = 25%) in group II (IHSC), and 7 pts (7/40 = 17%) in group III (IHSC + r-HuEPO). The numbers of units
Discussion
Anemia is commonly encountered after cardiac surgery. It is usually corrected either by blood transfusions or by erythropoiesis stimulation. Blood transfusions can be allogeneic or autologous. It is universally accepted that allogeneic blood transfusions (ABTs) should be avoided whenever possible. This is related to the fact that ABTs are associated with a risk of transmission of viral infections as well as febrile and hemolytic reactions.9, 10 Many strategies have been developed to avoid ABTs.
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