Two New Clinical Studies Show That Limited Exposure to Blood Transfusion Significantly Increases Morbidity and Mortality Aft...( Studies Advocate Blood Conservation a...),Health

Studies Advocate Blood Conservation and Appropriate Indicators for Transfusion

IRVINE, Calif., June 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Masimo (Nasdaq: MASI), the inventor of Pulse CO-Oximetry(TM) and Measure-Through Motion and Low-Perfusion pulse oximetry, announced today that two new studies - one conducted in patients undergoing general surgery and published in the Journal of American College of Surgeons and another conducted in patients undergoing cardiac surgery and published in the Anesthesia & Analgesia - provide additional new evidence that transfusion of just one or two units of blood significantly increases infection, pneumonia, sepsis, and mortality after surgery.(1,2) These studies suggest that transfusions and their associated risks could be "largely avoided" through implementation of better blood management techniques and "more appropriate indicators" for transfusions.

Blood transfusions may be necessary to ensure survival when a patient is bleeding heavily or has severe symptomatic anemia. However, transfusions are also given in the presence of stable anemia or when significant blood loss is expected but does not occur. These two new studies add to the growing evidence that transfusions carry life-threatening risks and urge that in the absence of benefit from transfusion, avoidance of transfusions through the use of more restrictive transfusion practices could improve patient outcomes.

In the general surgery study, researchers evaluated 125,177 patients from 121 hospitals and showed that after adjusting for all risk variables, transfusion of a single unit of blood increased 30-day mortality by 32% and morbidity (pneumonia, sepsis, or surgical site infection) by 23%. Transfusion of two units of blood increased the mortality risk by 38% and morbidity risk by 40%. In the cardiac surgery
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