Red Blood Transfusion Does Not Increase Risk for Venous or Arterial Thrombosis

Conclusions: In univariate analyses there are multiple risks for venous and arterial thrombosis, including many surgical procedures and medical comorbidities, as well as RBC transfusion. However, after adjustment for these multiple risk factors, RBC transfusion was not associated with a risk for arterial or venous thrombosis. Thus, this study of all patients admitted to 12 hospitals in the US did not identify RBC transfusion as an independent risk factor for thrombosis. The REDS-III database contains detailed information about comorbidities, medications, and timing of transfusion which allowed us to carefully define a thrombotic episode and its temporal relationship to RBC transfusion, and adjust for confounders that may not have been available in other datasets. Our findings do not rule out the possibility of a patient subset where RBC transfusion increases risk for thrombosis, such as patients with an underlying genetic hypercoagulable risk, but they do indicate that RBC transfusion does not appear to be an important risk factor for thrombosis in most patients. As such, receiving a blood transfusion should not influence decisions about venous thrombosis prophylaxis in hospitalized patients.DisclosuresMast: Novo Nordisk: Research Funding.

Source: Blood - November 21, 2018 Category: Hematology Authors: Baumann Kreuziger, L., Edgren, G., Hauser, R. G., Zaccaro, D., Kiss, J., Zimrin, A. B., Westlake, M., Brambilla, D., and Donor Evaluation Study-III (REDS-III), N. H. L. a. B. I. R. E., Mast, A. E. Tags: 331. Pathophysiology of Thrombosis: Risk Factors and Thromboembolism Source Type: research