[Acute preoperative normovolemic hemodilution in gynecologic operations. A retrospective analysis]

In a retrospective analysis, a comparison of two groups of 100 patients each showed that in major breast surgery the need for heterogeneous banked blood can be considerably reduced by means of acute preoperative normovolemic hemodilution. The method involves replacing the blood withdrawn directly before or after anesthetization with a colloidal substitute solution, subsequently reinfusing it either intraoperatively, following hemostasis, or in the postoperative phase. Hemodilution could not be shown to influence the postoperative courses of HB, hexokinase or thrombocyte values. In contrast to major breast surgery, hemodilution was not found to have any advantages as regards reducing the requirement for heterogeneous blood in major abdominal wall grafting procedures.