Less blood can be used in heart operations

A major international study involving Australian cardiac patients has found surgeons can safely use significantly less blood than they traditionally have been in heart operations. Researchers - including Royal Melbourne Hospital heart surgeon and University of Melbourne deputy director of surgery Professor Alistair Royse - believe they can safely save the equivalent of one blood donation per moderate-to-high risk patient. Led by principal investigator Professor David Mazer from the University of Toronto, the five-year study is the largest of its kind and monitored patients at 73 institutions across 19 countries. The results of the Transfusion Triggers in Cardiac Surgery Trial (TRICS-III) have been published in the prestigious journal New England Journal of Medicine . Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council provided $1.4 million in funding that was crucial in the study being expanded from an initially planned 3,500 patients to more than 5,000. The Australian arm of the study involved more than 620 patients across 12 hospitals in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. "This study may significantly change clinical practice across the globe by supporting the ongoing trend towards using less blood transfusions at a lower haemoglobin concentration," Professor Royse said.