Assessment of Intraoperative Blood Loss During Oral and Maxillofacial Surgical Procedures and its Implications

To estimate blood loss during oral and maxillofacial surgical procedures and to establish correlation between gravimetric/volumetric estimation of blood loss with changes in pre-operative and post-operative values of haematocrit, haemoglobin, body weight and red blood cell count.

Gravimetric and volumetric method of blood loss estimation was used during surgery. Pre-operative and immediate post-operative haematocrit, haemoglobin, red blood cell count and body weight along with intraoperative fluids given and duration of surgery were recorded. This clinically estimated blood loss was compared with actual blood loss which was calculated from the Gross formula. Bivariate analyses were performed using paired t test for comparison of pre- and post-value change and correlation among continuous variable was assessed using Pearson correlation test. Level of statistical significance was set at p value less than 0.05.

Significant reduction was found between mean pre-operative and mean post-operative haematocrit, haemoglobin, body weight and red blood cell count. Blood loss was found to consistently increase with duration of surgery. The study revealed significant difference between estimated blood loss and actual blood loss.

The study concluded that gravimetric/volumetric estimation was a reliable method to determine intraoperative blood loss.