Survival advantage of using autologous blood transfusion during surgery for esophageal cancer.

This interesting article raises once again the issue of whether or not allogeneic transfusion can hasten the relapse of cancer and shorten overall survival. There is a lot of information both ways, so the issue is not settled. The current paper suggests that allogeneic transfusion is doing something that autologous transfusion is not. It is certainly food for thought, but the final conclusion still remains an open issue for study.

– David H. Henry