• E Ovrum, E A Holen, and M A Lindstein-Ringdal.
• Hjertesenteret i Oslo.
• Tidsskr. Nor. Laegeforen. 1990 Feb 28; 110 (6): 694-7.

AbstractBlood conservation in open heart surgery has become mandatory in order to reduce the risk of viral contamination, and because of limited resources. We have performed 100 consecutive coronary artery bypass operations (13 women/87 men, aged 33-73 years, mean 58 years) without using homologous blood. A strict blood conservation programme was applied, with removal of autologous blood prebypass for retransfusion at the end of surgery, retransfusion of the heart-lung machine content to the patient, and autotransfusion of shed mediastinal blood in the postoperative period. All patients survived the operation and were extubated 1.6 hours (0-6) postoperatively. No patients needed resternotomy for bleeding, and no homologous blood was given. Five patients received 1-2 units of fresh frozen plasma because of coagulopathy. Mean hemoglobin was 12.0 g/100 ml and mean hematocrit was 36% at discharge from hospital. Elective coronary artery bypass surgery can be performed with little or no transfusions of homologous blood.

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