Fever and autologous blood retransfusion after total knee arthroplasty: a prospective study of 40 autotransfusion events in 21 patients.
The authors report a postoperative increase in body temperature by 2C within 12 h and 1C within 2 h after autotransfusion in all of 21 patients receiving about 1000 mL of drainage blood (with unspecified content of RBC), and none of the patients returning to normal temperature within the observation period (first two postoperative days). […]
Perioperative blood salvage as an alternative to predonating blood for primary total knee and hip arthroplasty.
This retrospective study shows again that intra- and postoperative blood salvage can minimize allogeneic transfusions. For the recent discussion about the use of unwashed drainage blood the paper is remarkable in demonstrating that cell washing is feasible. The cost analysis is (as usual) limited to a specific situation, as the cell sever costs are high […]
