Intraoperative Blood Conservation Using Cell-Saver

Abstract

Despite meticulous surgical technique a significant blood loss still occurs in routine cardiac surgery. In the past this was routinely replaced with a “banked” blood transfusion. Concerns about the well known complications of the bank blood transfusion, including those of transmitted disease recognized recently, have led to the development of various perioperative blood conservation techniques. Our initial experience in 225 selected patients using Hemanetics-cell-saver equipment has been reported previously [2]. Since 1987, this method of intraoperative blood conservation has been used routinely in all of the approximately 900 cardiac surgery procedures performed in our service. The present study details our most recent experience with this technique in 100 consecutive and unselected cardiac surgical procedures performed by several surgeons.