“Come for a broken heart and we’ll break your kidneys, too,”
would seem to be the motto of the medical profession.
A massive study of the records of nearly 2 million patients has proven that blood transfusion causes kidney injury. This is significant
because the data study moves it from the realm of the anecdotal (as in, ‘many
doctors have noticed what seems to be a connection’) into the
realm of hard fact.
Of the 1.7 million patients who underwent angioplasty for a
heart problem – generally considered a “non-invasive” procedure – 38,626 were
given a blood transfusion. The justification was generally low blood count, “anemia”
(hemoglobin below 10) or bleeding. Eight patients
were given blood whose records showed neither anemia nor bleeding.
Of the 38,626 who were given blood, a whopping 35% – 13,520 patients – suffered from AKI, Acute
Kidney Injury. Only 8% of the non-transfused patients developed AKI. Fully
twice as many patients with AKI (18.4% versus 9.1%) had congestive heart
failure within 2 weeks.
“In this retrospective study, we identified an independent
association between blood transfusion and AKI in [patients undergoing
angioplasty],” the researchers wrote. “This association was significant even
among patients with anemia at baseline… suggesting that a restrictive blood
transfusion policy needs to be further investigated for its potential to
improve [patient] safety.” [Read the raw data here…]
Please feel free to leave a comment.
To read more of my columns about blood medicine, click here.
To return to the home page, click here. 