Assessment of perioperative transfusion requirement for cirrhotic patients undergoing elective hepatectomy

The possibility of outlining a risk profile for perioperative blood transfusion of cirrhotic patients submitted to hepatic resection can help to rationalize transfusion policy.

Data from 323 hepatic resections, performed in cirrhotic patients, were reviewed. Bootstrap and a leave-one-out logistic regressions were applied to test the accuracy of available risk scores for peri-operative transfusion identified from PubMed search of the last 20 years, to refine them, and to provide internal validation for present results.

One-hundred-six patients (32.8%) required blood transfusions during either intra- and/or postoperative. The predictive accuracy of three identified risk scores was poor with the area under receiver operating characteristics (AUROC) curves <0.70 in all cases. Tumor diameter, hemoglobin and presence of coronary artery disease were confirmed, in the present cohort, as predictors of blood transfusion together with serum albumin and bilirubin. The leave-one-out logistic regression results in an AUROC of 0.80, and of 0.79 for internal validation, significantly higher than that of the three scores tested (P<0.001). A Maximal Surgical Blood Order Schedule stratification was proposed.

The risk profile for transfusion of cirrhotic patients undergoing hepatectomy can be better assessed with a model that combines already known clinical factors and hepatic function indexes.