Association of blood transfusion with increased mortality in myocardial infarction: a meta-analysis and diversity-adjusted study sequential analysis.

The meta-analysis by Chatterjee et al. suggests that blood transfusion kills more patients with an acute myocardial infarction than anemia. However, the masterly accompanying editorial by Carson and Hébert challenges this and points out that there are many flaws in the academic arguments, perhaps the biggest being that patients who require blood transfusion are sicker than those who don’t, and that such clinically important information is missing from the analysis.

– Beverley Hunt