Factors Defining the Clinical Need for Supportive Haemotherapy

Abstract

There should be no difference between the factors defining the clinical need for supportive haemotherapy and other forms of clinical therapy. In general the choice of a therapy must be based on the present balance of efficacy, adverse effects and costs. Efficacy focuses on the benefit achieved when medical technology, for instance the transfusion of blood products, is applied under ideal conditions for specific individuals having a particular medical problem. Effectiveness emphasises what a technology actually does. It reflects performance of a medical technology under ordinary conditions when applied by an average practitioner, to a typical patient. In order to make rational choices we depend on relevant literature. As there are thousands of articles published each year, the first we ought to do is to decide what is relevant literature. Sackett et al. [1] and Guyatt et al. [2,3] made suggestions for the use of articles concerning therapy or prevention. The guides, readers might use for an article on therapy or prevention can be very well applied to evaluations on the use of blood products.