Assessing the frequency of anemia evaluations in patients who are transfusion-dependent in an academic hematology and oncology practice.
Authors: Li Shenduo , McKinley Blake , Mosalem Osama M , Kim Joseph B , O'Brien Jennifer , Shaikh Marwan Elahi 
Published: June 2023

e24104

Background: There is a high rate of anemia present in cancer patients and anemia is also a common referral to a hematologist. Symptomatic anemia can significantly impair an individual’s functional status so identifying its cause is essential for improving quality of life. Correction of nutritional deficiencies, like iron, B12, and folate deficiency can improve hemoglobin counts, prevent recurrent PRBC transfusions, and can often resolve the anemia. In a busy academic hematology oncology practice, we hypothesize that it is easy to overlook performing a basic nutritional evaluation especially in the setting of other causes for anemia such as chemotherapy, hemolysis, blood loss, chronic kidney disease, and other disorders. We aim to evaluate the frequency of anemia workup in the hematology and oncology division at our academic institution. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of all hematology oncology patients seen in our clinic who received a blood transfusion in 2021. All patients were 18 years old or order and received at least one-unit PRBC transfusion as an outpatient. One “transfusion event” was defined as any number of PRBC transfusions on a single day and any subsequent transfusions within a 90-day periods. A single patient, therefore, can have multiple distinct transfusion events. We analyzed whether patients received a “basic” anemia evaluation, defined as checking ferritin, iron saturation, B12, and folate levels within 3 months before or after the first transfusion, and whether a discrepancy in practice patterns exists between different hematology oncology subspecialties. Results: At the interim analysis, we identified 368 transfusion events for 275 patients. Those events were ordered by providers (physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant) in the following subspecialties: oncology (n = 20), malignant hematology (n = 18), classical hematology (n = 3), and fellow-in-training (n = 5). A basic anemia workup was missing in 58% (84 of 146), 27% (49 of 183), 23% (8 of 35), 40% (2 of 5) in the above groups respectively. For patients with macrocytic anemia defined as mean corpuscular volume (MCV) > 100 fL, 48% (38 of 79) did not have B12 or folate levels checked within 3 months before or after a transfusion event. For patients with MCV < 80 fL, 47% (14 of 30) did not have ferritin or iron saturation checked within 3 months before or after a transfusion event. Conclusions: We observed a high percentage of cancer and non-malignant hematology patients who did not receive a basic anemia evaluation within three months before or three months after a blood transfusion. A higher percentage of patients with solid tumors patients who required PRBC transfusions did not receive a basic anemia evaluation in a timely manner. Our study identified an area of quality improvement and need for intervention that can easily be overlooked in a busy academic hematology oncology practice.