Abstract
Critically ill patients are frequently transfused, with 40–50 % of patients receiving a red blood cell transfusion during their stay in the intensive care unit (ICU) [ 1 ].
Current red blood cell transfusion practice in the ICU has largely been shaped by a landmark trial published in 1999, which taught us that a restrictive transfusion trigger is well tolerated in the critically ill and of particular benefi t in the young and less severely ill [ 2 ]. Following this trial, a restrictive trigger has been widely adopted [ 3 – 5 ]. Nevertheless, transfusion rates in the ICU remain high, rendering bloodtransfusion part of everyday practice in the ICU.
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Juffermans, N.P., Walsh, T.S. (2015). Introduction. In: Juffermans, N., Walsh, T. (eds) Transfusion in the Intensive Care Unit. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08735-1_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08735-1_1
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