Researchers used the National Inpatient Sample to identify patients undergoing spinal fusion from 2000 to 2009 with ICD-9-CM codes. There was an increasing trend of allogeneic blood transfusion rate and decreasing predonated autologous blood transfusion rate.
The trends include:
• ALBT rate growth from 4.3 percent to 8 percent
• PR-ABT rate decline from 2.6 percent to 0.7 percent
• Overall blood transfusion and perioperative autologous blood transfusion rates remained stable from 2000 to 2009
• ALBT rate was high among pediatric and elderly patients, female patients and patients who underwent thoracolumbar, posterior and anterior and posterior fusion.
“The overall blood transfusion rate remained stable; however it may be reduced by using a patient blood management program, targeting the subgroups of patients with high ALBT rate,” the authors concluded.
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