Leucocyte depletion of perioperative blood transfusion does not affect long-term survival and recurrence in patients with gastrointestinal cancer.

I found this paper extremely interesting, well done and well designed. The data support the conclusions. If indeed there is a concern that nonleukodepleted blood poses an immunomodulatory risk to cancer patients, this study clearly answers that as far as survival and recurrence are concerned, there is no difference between leukodepleted and nonleukodepleted transfused red blood cells.

– Michael Auerbach