[Evaluation of perioperative blood loss and transfusion in total knee arthroplasty]

Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is generally associated with considerable blood loss and frequent blood transfusion, which are affected by various factors. We evaluated them retrospectively.

Fifty-five patients underwent TKA at our facility between January 2008 and December 2011. We investigated retrospectively their perioperative blood loss and transfusion by using medical and anesthetic records.

Perioperative amounts of blood loss and allogenic transfusion rates were 424 g and 9 percent (average RCC 2.4 units), respectively. All patients who had donated preoperative autologous blood were able to avoid allogenic transfusion. On the other hand, 24% of entire autologous bloods were discarded.

There is considerable perioperative blood loss in TKA. And such factors as hemostasis, anesthetization and anticoagulation can affect it It may be possible to avoid allogenic transfusion by using preoperative autologous blood donation. However, much attention should be paid to appropriate collection of autologous bloods, because of the possibility of a high discard rate of these.