Early clinical experience with a simple method for autotransfusion in cardiac surgery

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Abstract
A simple method for intraoperative autotransfusion (ATF) in open-heart surgery was tested in a prospective clinical trial. The patients were randomly assigned to a control group (33) or to the ATF group (35). The intraoperative ATF was combined with preoperative collection of blood and postoperative ATF. The postoperative chest-tube drainage was reduced by 24.3%, the donor-blood requirement by 43.3% and the consumption of fresh-frozen plasma by 43.9% in the ATF group as compared with the controls (all differences statistically significant). To investigate possible haematologic side effects of ATF, measurements of haemoglobin, haematocrit, fibrinogen concentration, thrombin, prothrombin and partial thromboplastin time, antithrombin-III and fibrinolytic activity were made in all patients preoperatively and on postoperative days 1 and 2. No statistical differences were then found between the controls and the ATF group. Microbiologic tests of blood sampled from the cardiotomy reservoir gave satisfactory results.