The Thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon
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Diabetes mellitus is an established independent risk factor related to significant morbidity and mortality after cardiac surgical procedures. ⋯ Diabetes mellitus is a significant independent predictor for several postoperative outcome variables after cardiac surgery associated with higher postoperative morbidity and prolonged hospital stay.
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Thorac Cardiovasc Surg · Feb 2003
Predictors of homologous blood transfusion for patients undergoing open heart surgery.
It has become very important to avoid homologous blood transfusions in today's cardiac surgery. We performed a retrospective analysis to find out preoperative factors to predict the risk for transfusion of red-cell concentrate in cardiac surgery. ⋯ We could show that there is normally no need for blood transfusion in (2/3) of the patients in cardiac surgery according to this study's results. Furthermore, it was obvious that some patient variables can be used predict the risk for perioperative transfusion. Based on these results, the prophylactic administration of aprotinin or the use of a cell saver could be useful in selected patients.