Blood tranfusion in critically ill patients: state of the art

Anemia is one of the most common abnormal findings in critically ill patients, and many of these patients will receive a blood transfusion during their intensive care unit stay. However, the determinants of exactly which patients do receive transfusions remains to be defined and have been the subject of considerable debate in recent years. Concerns and doubts have emerged regarding the benefits and safety of blood transfusion, in part due to the lack of evidence of better outcomes resulting from randomized studies and in part related to the observations that transfusion may increase the risk of infection. As a result of these concerns and of several studies suggesting better or similar outcomes with a lower transfusion trigger, there has been a general tendency to decrease the transfusion threshold from the classic 10 g/dL to lower values. In this review, we focus on some of the key studies providing insight into current transfusion practices and fueling the current debate on the ideal transfusion trigger.