ABSTRACT
In the orthopaedic field, some elective surgeries such as joint replacement, spinal surgery and limb salvage procedures for musculoskeletal tumors frequently need various amounts of blood transfusions. However, homologous transfusion occasionally results in various side effects, such as allergic reaction, febrile reaction, and the transmission of infectious diseases such as syphilis, hepatitis and AIDS, ctc. Recently, these complications especially in elective surgery might result in medicolegal or social problems. Risks from transfusions in elective surgery can be minimized with prebanked autologous transfusion. To evaluate the necessity of prehanked autogenous transfusion, fifty five patients who had unilateral hybrid total knee arthroplasty (noncemented at the femoral side and cemented at the tibial and patellar sides) were operated on by the same surgeon from April 199S to July 1997 and had autogenous shed blood transfusion were evaluated for postoperative blood loss, amount of autogenous shed blood, amount of transfusion, hemoglobin and hematocrit. The results were as follows: 1. The distribution of preoperative hemoglobin was from 9.6g/dL to 16.5g/dL (average: 1.8g/dL). 2. The distribution of the amount of blood loss for three days postoperatively was from 156ml to 2001 ml (average: 798ml). 3. The distrihution of the amount of transfusion of autogenous shed blood was from 30ml to 600ml (average: 448ml). 4. There were two patients who had febrile reactions above 38 after transfusion of autogenous shed blood. 5. Forty-six patient(84%) had a homologous transfusion and the average amount of transfusion was 1.9 pint. 6. Total amount of homologous transfusion was decreased according to the increased amount of hemoglobin and the amount of transfusion was statistically decreased above the level of I 3g/dL(Students t-test, P=0.0005). 7. There were no significant differences in the amount of homologous transfusion between age, sex, type of disease, type of implants. In conclusion, most of our patients(84%) needed homologous blood transfusion in unilateral hyhrid total knee arthroplasty and the amount of transfusion decreased in patients who had hemoglobin above 13.0g/dL. So we recommend preparing banked autogenous hlood preoperatively in patients who have a lower hemoglobin level in unilateral hyhrid total knee arthroplasty.