Patients given less blood during transfusions do well

Giving smaller blood transfusions to patients after surgery is as beneficial as giving them larger ones, a new study has found.
Patients with heart disease who receive transfusions during surgeries do just as well with smaller amounts of blood and face no greater risk of dying from other diseases than patients who received more blood, researchers from Rutgers University have found.
The research, published in the journal Lancet, measured overall mortality and mortality from cardiovascular disease, cancer and severe infection, and offers new validation to a recent trend toward smaller transfusions.
For the study, led by Jeffrey Carson, chief of the Division of Internal Medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, researchers followed 2,016 patients for as long as four years.

Half received larger quantities of transfused blood; half received transfusions that were smaller by as much as two thirds.
Carson and his team found no evidence of increased mortality from cardiovascular disease, cancer or severe infection due to the amount of the blood given after surgery.
"There has been a steady decline in the amount of blood in transfusions given to patients in the past three to five years," Carson said.
"I think it is very reassuring that we have found that using less blood is okay not just from a short term perspective, but also a long term perspective," he said.