• B Borghi and R Borghi.
• Department of Surgery and Anaesthesiology Sciences, University of Bologna, Research Unit of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute, Bologna, Italy. battista.borghi@ior.it
• Transplant. Proc. 2011 Jan 1;43(1):333-7.

AbstractMajor surgery is associated with intraoperative and postoperative bleeding, generally treated with homologous blood transfusions, which carry the risk of infection, allergic reactions, or incompatibility as well as a number of organizational and economic problems. Transfusion strategies and steps to minimize perioperative bleeding are needed. Another resource is drugs; human recombinant erythropoietin, aprotinin, and some analogues of lysine have been used to reduce the rate of allogenic transfusions in the perioperative period. The safest method is autologous blood transfusions through predeposits and hemodilution; however, it can only be used for elective surgery. Autologous transfusion techniques include blood collection, both intraoperatively, as described by Orr, and postoperatively, as introduced by Borghi in 1984, which enables the continuous monitoring of postoperative bleeding. Blood collection can also be performed during emergency surgery, reducing the rate and costs of homologous transfusions.Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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