• Mehmet Ergelen, Huseyin Uyarel, Servet Altay, Erkan Ayhan, Turgay Isik, Ahmet Bacaksiz, Tuba Kemaloğlu, Mehmet Gül, Gokhan Cicek, Seref Kul, Gokhan Ertas, and Abdurrahman Tasal.
• Department of Cardiology, School of Medicine, Bezmialem Vakif University, Istanbul, Turkey. drmerg@hotmail.com
• Coron. Artery Dis. 2012 Dec 1;23(8):517-22.

ObjectivesWe aimed to examine in-hospital and long-term outcomes of red blood cell (RBC) transfusions in patients undergoing a primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI).MethodsOverall, 2537 consecutive STEMI patients (mean age 56.2 ± 11.7 years, 2111 men, 426 women) undergoing primary angioplasty were enrolled retrospectively into the present study. Patients were categorized according to whether they received RBC transfusions during hospitalization. Clinical characteristics, and in-hospital and long-term outcomes of the primary PCI were analyzed.ResultsOf the consecutive 2537 patients, 88 (3.4%) received RBC transfusions during the index hospitalization. The transfused patients were older than nontransfused patients (mean age 63.6 ± 12.1 vs. 56.2 ± 11.8, P<0.001). Compared with nontransfused patients, female sex and hypertension were more prevalent in transfused patients (45.4 vs. 15.8%, P<0.001; 52.3 vs. 40.7%, P=0.04, respectively). Baseline values of hematocrit and hemoglobin were lower in patients receiving transfusion (33 ± 6.2 vs. 40.2 ± 4.7%, P<0.001; 11.1 ± 2.3 vs. 13.7 ± 1.6 mg/dl, P<0.001, respectively). The transfused patients had significantly higher in-hospital and long-term mortality (for in-hospital mortality: 10.2 vs. 2.7%, P<0.001; for long-term mortality: 14.1 vs. 5.1%, P=0.001). By multivariate Cox regression analysis, in all 2537 patients, RBC transfusion was found to be a powerful independent predictor of in-hospital cardiovascular mortality (odds ratio 8.31, P<0.001).ConclusionThese results show that RBC transfusion is associated with increased in-hospital and long-term mortality in patients with STEMI undergoing a primary PCI.

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