Study: Transfusion Ups Risk for Advanced Colorectal Cancer Patients

Advanced colorectal cancer patients who require liver surgery are at a much greater risk of a poor outcome if they have a blood transfustion during their hospitalization for surgery, according to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center researchers.

The researchers, in analyzing outcomes for 1,351 patients who had liver surgery for metastatic colorectal cancer, found that patients who received one to two units of blood died during surgery more than twice as frequently as those not requiring transfusions.

And they reported in the journal Annals of Surgery that patients requiring more than two units of blood were at more than eight times greater risk of death during surgery as those not requiring blood.

They said transfusion was also associated with adverse long-term survival, and "even patients receiving only one or two units had a more adverse outcome."

"Blood conservation methods should be used to avoid transfusion, especially in patents currently requiring limited amounts of transfused blood products," the researchers concluded.

Other Sources: Annals of Surgery