• Behnam Sharareh, Spencer Woolwine, Siddarth Satish, Peter Abraham, and Ran Schwarzkopf.
• Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Joint Replacement Service, University of California, Irvine, Orange, CA, USA.
• Open Orthop J. 2015 Jan 1;9:422-6.

IntroductionReal-time monitoring of blood loss is critical in fluid management. Visual estimation remains the standard of care in estimating blood loss, yet is demonstrably inaccurate. Photometric analysis, which is the referenced "gold-standard" for measuring blood loss, is both time-consuming and costly. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a novel tablet-monitoring device for measurement of Hb loss during orthopaedic procedures.MethodsThis is a prospective study of 50 patients in a consecutive series of joint arthroplasty cases. The novel System with Feature Extraction Technology was used to measure the amount of Hb contained within surgical sponges intra-operatively. The system's measures were then compared with those obtained via gravimetric method and photometric analysis. Accuracy was evaluated using linear regression and Bland-Altman analysis.ResultsOur results showed a significant positive correlation between Triton tablet system and photometric analysis with respect to intra-operative hemoglobin and blood loss at 0.92 and 0.91, respectively.DiscussionThis novel system can accurately determine Hb loss contained within surgical sponges. We believe that this user-friendly software can be used for measurement of total intraoperative blood loss and thus aid in a more accurate fluid management protocols during orthopaedic surgical procedures.

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