The authors, following the trends of several Services, have been searching for techniques aiming at reducing, and in some cases eliminating the utilization of blood and derivatives in patients submitted to heart surgery and extracorporeal circulation. This has as objetive to reduce the morbidity as well as avoiding diseases transmission (mainly hepatitis and AIDS) related to blood transfusion. Fifty patients submitted to surgery with extracorporeal circulation were analyzed. Pre or trans-operative auto-transfusion, total hemodilution during perfusion, re-utilization of suctioned blood as well as re-utilization of the oxygenative residual blood (by processing them in discontinuous flow procedure were used. With those methods, there was a significant reduction of transfused volume (324ml in average at trans-operative and 272ml at post-operative period); 34% of patients did not receive blood during operation; 36% did not utilize post-operatively and 20% did not use it during the whole period of hospitalization. Also significant anemia was not noted (hematocrit in immediate post-operative was 38.4% and at the 5th post-operative day 35.9%) what lessens the risk of asthenia, sleepness, inaction, lung secretion and thromboembolic phenomenon, mainly in elderly patients, without interfering in the total cost of surgery.
auto-transfusion; extracorporeal circulation