Transfusion medicine and surgery.
Mortality after surgery in patients with severe and progressive anemia is an entity': risks related to
blood loss and insufficient oxygen delivery to tissues are still a major concern in surgery. Risks of
blood transfusion parallel those of blood loss: blood-borne infectious diseases and immunological
side effects' may frustrate therapeutic efforts of surgery. Thus, blood transfusion in surgery must be kept to a
level in which both risks are reduced to a minimum (or theoretically even absent). This review will deal with
two relevant questions: (a) how to define the lowest amount of blood tranifusion needed for sur8ery and (b) how to
reduce or abolish post-tranifusion risks of this amount.
De Angelis
V
V
Blood Bank and Clinical Pathology Laboratory, IRCCS Centro di Riferimento Oncologico, Aviano, Italy.
De Marco
L
L