Efficacy and safety of erythropoietin and iron therapy to reduce red blood cell transfusion in surgical patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

CONCLUSION: Administration of ESA and iron therapy reduced the risk for RBC transfusion compared with iron therapy alone in patients undergoing cardiac and non-cardiac surgery. Nevertheless, publication bias and heterogeneity reduces the confidence of the finding. Although the analysis was probably under-powered for some outcomes, no difference in the incidence of serious adverse events was observed with ESA and iron compared with iron alone. Further large prospective trials are required to confirm these findings.
PMID: 30924000 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Canadian Journal of Anaesthesia - March 27, 2019 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Kei T, Mistry N, Curley G, Pavenski K, Shehata N, Tanzini RM, Gauthier MF, Thorpe K, Schweizer TA, Ward S, Mazer CD, Hare GMT Tags: Can J Anaesth Source Type: research