• Cecile Aubron, Michael Bailey, Zoe McQuilten, David Pilcher, Colin Hegarty, Anthony Martinelli, Geoff Magrin, David Irving, D Jamie Cooper, and Rinaldo Bellomo.
• The Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3004, Australia. Electronic address: cecile.aubron@monash.edu.
• J Crit Care. 2014 Jun 1;29(3):476.e1-8.

PurposeThere is conflicting evidence on the effect of red blood cells (RBC) storage duration and clinical outcomes. We aimed to investigate the association between RBC storage duration and clinical outcomes in patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU).Materials And MethodsWe retrospectively (2001-2011) studied adults admitted to the ICUs of 2 hospitals who received RBC. Using the mean, maximum and minimum age of RBC units transfused, we evaluated the association between RBC storage duration and mortality. We also analyzed the association between mean age of RBC units and length of stay (LOS) in survivors. We performed sensitivity analyses in patients who only received RBC in ICU and who only received leukodepleted RBC.ResultsWe studied 8416 patients who received a median of 4 (interquartile range, 2-7) RBC units. After multivariate analysis, age of RBC was not independently associated with mortality, including in the subgroup analyses. Furthermore, there was no clinically relevant relationship between mean RBC age and LOS.ConclusionsRBC storage duration was not associated with increased mortality nor ICU and hospital LOS. These results support the view that the effect of RBC storage duration on outcomes in critically ill patients is uncertain.Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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