This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on ISI (6)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related articles  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Anemias  • Hematology, Other  • Alert me on articles by topic

Robert L. Thurer, MD

JAMA. 1998;279:238-239.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Ten years ago a National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference¹ challenged the conventional wisdom that perioperative patients should receive red blood cell transfusion if their hemoglobin level decreased to less than 100 g/L (hematocrit <0.30). This transfusion trigger was replaced by a statement that "otherwise healthy patients with hemoglobin values of 100 g/L or greater rarely require perioperative transfusion, whereas those with acute anemia with resulting hemoglobin values of less than 70 g/L frequently will require red blood cell transfusions." In this issue of THE JOURNAL, Carson et al² assessed the hemoglobin level at which patients were given a transfusion following surgery. In their retrospective study of 8787 patients with hip fracture who underwent surgical repair between 1983 and 1993, Carson et al² found that only 6.6% of patients with a postoperative hemoglobin level of 100 g/L or greater received a transfusion, while 95% of . . . [Full Text of this Article]

From the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.

RELATED ARTICLES

Perioperative Blood Transfusion and Postoperative Mortality
Jeffrey L. Carson, Amy Duff, Jesse A. Berlin, Valerie A. Lawrence, Roy M. Poses, Elizabeth C. Huber, Dorene A. O'Hara, Helaine Noveck, and Brian L. Strom
JAMA. 1998;279(3):199-205.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Human Cardiovascular and Metabolic Response to Acute, Severe Isovolemic Anemia
Richard B. Weiskopf, Maurene K. Viele, John Feiner, Scott Kelley, Jeremy Lieberman, Mariam Noorani, Jacqueline M. Leung, Dennis M. Fisher, William R. Murray, Pearl Toy, and Mark A. Moore
JAMA. 1998;279(3):217-221.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Open Heart Surgery for Small Children Without Homologous Blood Transfusion by Using Remote Pump Head System
Ando et al.
Ann. Thorac. Surg. 2004;78:1717-1722.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Preoperative Cardiac Preparation
Belzberg and Rivkind
Chest 1999;115:82S-95S.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT