Effect of erythropoietin therapy in cardiac surgery using autologous blood transfusion

Autologous blood transfusion in cardiac surgery is currently widely practiced to avoid homologous blood transfusion. To assess the benefit of recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO), the authors studied 72 patients (53 men, 19 women) who underwent elective cardiac surgery over a 15-month period and agreed to this protocol. Of these, 47 had coronary artery bypass grafting, 19 had valve replacement, and 6 had other procedures. Each patient was scheduled to preserve more than 800 mL of autologous blood preoperatively. They received rhEPO (100 to 40 U/kg) IV 3 times weekly during a 2 to 3-week preoperative period. During surgery, an autotransfusion system was also applied. During the preoperative period, 49 patients (68.1%) increased their hemoglobin by more than 1.0 g/dL, and 66 patients (91.7%) had their operation without homologous blood transfusion. This is a significantly high incidence compared with the group who had neither preoperative preservation nor rhEPO (55 of 109 patients; 50.5%). The authors conclude that rhEPO is effective in preserving autologous blood safely before elective surgery, and most elective cardiac surgery can be done without homologous blood transfusion by preoperatively preserving autologous blood with the aid of rhEPO and employing intraoperative autotransfusion.