Eric Tesdahl, PhD
Senior Biostatistician
November 23, 2016
Scientific Sessions in New Orleans. “Gender Differences in Intraoperative Blood Transfusions” reviews 54,122 coronary artery bypass procedures gathered from 189 surgical facilities in our SCOPE™ database. It was published this week in the journal, Circulation.
Our findings were somewhat surprising to us. If you simply compare the transfusion rate for men and women you see a three-fold difference in RBC transfusion rate; 13.7% of men in our sample received a transfusion, compared with 45.1% of women. While multivariable analysis did confirm many of the traditional explanations for gender differences, we found that even after adjusting for 12 confounding factors, women continue to have a 30% increased risk of intraoperative RBC transfusion that has yet to be explained in the literature.
To narrow the gap in gender-based outcomes after cardiac surgery, healthcare providers and researchers must continue to look for reasons behind the disparity and consider strategies aimed at gender differences that may minimize unnecessary transfusions. Given the significant complications and costs associated with RBC transfusion (e.g., higher infection rates, increased length of stay, blood acquisition), future study on the impact of gender on transfusion practice in cardiac surgery is warranted.
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Editor’s note: Visit our Resource Library for more original research on perfusion, intraoperative neuromonitoring, and related surgical services.
