Safety of cardiac surgery without blood transfusion: a retrospective study in Jehovah's Witness patients.

摘要

We read with interest the experience of El Azab et al. [1] of providing a cardiac surgery service to Jehovah's Witness patients. We agree that patients who refuse allogeneic blood products present both moral and ethical challenges, especially in cardiac surgery where significant blood loss and allogeneic blood product transfusion are common. We noted that the pre-operative haemoglobin concentrations were very similar in both groups, despite 3 weeks' treatment with erythropoietin, and the number of patients in the control group who received blood product transfusion was very high. We work in a busy cardiothoracic centre with a blood product transfusion rate of 20-25% compared to 65% in the control group in their article. Knowledge of their patients' postoperative haemoglobin concentrations would have been interesting, but this information was not provided.