Estimation of Blood Loss in Patients Undergoing Surgery for Oral Malignancies: a Clinical Study

The primary objective is to estimate the blood loss following major surgery like neck dissection, resection of primary and reconstruction; secondarily to evaluate the incidence of blood transfusion, to assess various options of blood conservation to avert blood transfusions.

The data for the prospective study were obtained from 2017-2019. The predictor variables were drawn from demographic characteristics, biopsy report, haemoglobin status, comorbidities, staging, surgical planning, intraoperative and post-operative measures taken for blood loss assessment. Outcome variables were estimation of blood loss, incidence of blood transfusion and measures to avoid.

Thirty-eight patients 29 males (76.3%) comparison to nine females (23.6%) with 35 cases (92.1%) of oral squamous cell carcinoma. Average blood loss was 673.5 ml with a range of 400-807 ml. There was direct co-relation between the duration of surgery and amount of blood loss. In 76.3% patient's blood transfusion was avoided which is significant.

Though there is no single standardized method as the accuracy is still questionable. In this study blood loss and incidence of blood transfusion was low so as to promote the hypothesis of blood conservation and transfusion in major surgeries by various pre, intra and post-operative measures.