Blood loss following knee replacement surgery, use it don't lose it

We prospectively studied the ability of the post-operative salvage and reinfusion of unwashed blood to reduce the allogeneic blood transfusion requirements of 339 patients undergoing various types of knee replacement procedures (unilateral, bilateral, revision and unicompartmental). For each type of procedure studied, the use of post-operative blood salvage and reinfusion significantly reduced the need for allogeneic blood transfusion (P < 0.01). Knee replacement surgery performed with a bloodless field using a tourniquet is ideally suited to the use of post-operative blood salvage and reinfusion as a method of autologous blood transfusion and since this study has shown that large reductions in the use of allogeneic blood can be achieved by its use, we recommend that it be considered for all types of knee replacement surgery. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.