The results suggest cell salvage is efficacious in reducing the need for allogeneic red cell transfusion in adult elective cardiac and orthopaedic surgery. The use of cell salvage did not appear to impact adversely on clinical outcomes. However, the methodological quality of trials was poor. As the trials were unblinded and lacked adequate concealment of treatment allocation, transfusion practices may have been influenced by knowledge of the patients' treatment status potentially biasing the results in favour of cell salvage.
Autotransfusion drains in total knee replacement. Are they alternatives to homologous transfusion?
We prospectively randomised 104 consecutive patients undergoing primary cemented total knee arthroplasty into two groups of 52 patients each, with one group to receive a standard suction drain (Redivac) and the other, an autologous transfusion drain (Bellovac). Randomisation was achieved using the software programme MINIM: , which was set to randomly allocate patients to either of the two groups based on their age, sex and body mass index (BMI). All procedures were performed under pneumatic tourniquet. Drains were released in the recovery room 20 min after surgery and removed 24 h following surgery. Blood collected in the standard suction drain (control group) was discarded, while blood collected in the autologous transfusion drains (study group) was transfused unwashed back to the patient within 6 h of collection. Thirteen patients (25%) in the study group had two or more units of homologous blood transfused in addition to the blood collected postoperatively and re-transfused (average: 438 ml). Twelve patients (23%) in the control group had two or more units of homologous blood transfused. No sepsis, transfusion reactions or coagulopathies were associated with the autologous blood transfused in the study group. The use of the autologous transfusion system (Bellovac) proved to be safe but failed to reduce the need for postoperative homologous blood transfusion following uncomplicated total knee arthroplasty.