Photo by Elisa Amendola
HONG KONG—Continuous and noninvasive hemoglobin monitoring may reduce the excessive use of intraoperative red blood cell (RBC) transfusion, according to researchers.
The team conducted a retrospective study of patients who received intraoperative RBC transfusions at a single institution, comparing patients who had noninvasive and continuous monitoring of hemoglobin concentrations by spectrophotometry (SpHb) to those who did not.
The results showed a significantly lower mean RBC transfusion volume per 1 g of blood loss in the SpHb group than in the control group.
The researchers presented these findings at the 16th World Congress of Anaesthesiologists (abstract PR607).
The study included 371 patients who received intraoperative RBC transfusions between 2012 and 2014 at Fukushima Medical University in Japan.
The researchers compared 94 patients who had SpHb with the Radical-7® Pulse CO-Oximeter (a product of Masimo) to 277 patients who did not.
The team noted that measured SpHb values are similar to the Hb concentration values obtained by blood sampling, and the procedure allows for continuous monitoring of changes in SpHb levels over time.
The median blood loss during surgery was 1160 g in the SpHb group and 900 g in the control group.
There was no significant difference in the average RBC transfusion volume between the SpHb group and the control group—815 ± 819 mL and 785 ± 773 mL, respectively (P=0.75).
Likewise, there was no significant difference in the preoperative hemoglobin concentration in the SpHb group and the control group—10.4 ± 1.9 g/dL and 10.2 ± 2.4 g/dL, respectively (P=0.27).
However, the researchers did find that patients in the SpHb group had a significantly lower mean RBC transfusion volume per 1 g of blood loss when compared to controls—0.9 ± 1.0 mL/g blood loss and 2.4 ± 5.9 mL/g blood loss, respectively (P<0.01).
“This is the third study, published by different researchers on 3 continents (US1, Egypt2, and now Japan) that has shown that, in addition to other clinical tools, SpHb may be used to help clinicians make informed transfusion decisions during different types of surgery,” said Steven Barker, MD, PhD, chief science officer of Masimo.
Though Masimo’s Radical-7® Pulse CO-Oximeter was used in this study, the researchers declared no conflicts of interest.
