Clinical Pathology Abstracts
Trends in perioperative RBC transfusion from index cases in five surgical specialties
July 2018—In recent years, greater attention has been given to patient blood management. While contemporary national guidelines recommend restrictive red blood cell transfusion, it is not known whether such transfusions have decreased in surgical patients. Approximately 11 million RBC transfusions are performed annually, and two-thirds of those are for patients in the perioperative period.