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Equal Blood Conservation In On- And Off-Pump Coronary Bypass Operation With The Routine Use Of Cell Saver
356-360
Correspondence
Dr. Mohan Devbhandari, Department of Cardiothoracic, Surgery, Manchester Royal Infirmary, Manchester, United Kingdom Tel: +44 161 9803100 Fax: +44 161 2912685 Email:mohandev@hotmail.com
Background: The limitations of recent studies comparing usage of blood products in on and off- pump coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) have been the routine use of cell saver in the former but not in the latter group. We routinely use cell savers in both on- and off-pump coronary bypasses. We analysed our prospectively collected data to get a more balanced comparison of the two methods.
Methods: Data were prospectively collected on all patients undergoing isolated CABG from January 2003 to December 2004. One hundred and seventy-four patients operated on using off-pump technique (OPCAB) were compared with 1125 on-pump cases (ONCAB). They were well matched in terms of age, sex, disease severity, and priority of surgery.
Results: There were no significant differences between OPCAB and ONCAB groups in terms of usage of red cells (18% vs. 21%, p not significant (NS)), platelet (6% vs. 7%, p NS), fresh frozen plasma (6% vs. 10%, p NS), chest drain output at 12 hours (mean 802 vs. 856 ml, p NS), or pre-discharge haemoglobin (10 1 vs. 9 1 g/dl, p NS).
Conclusion: The routine use of cell saver can achieve the same blood conservation in both on- and off-pump CABG.