Blood transfusion and septic complications after hip replacement surgery

The purpose of this study was to address some methodologic issues that might help explain the disagreement between the findings of earlier reports on the presumed association between allogeneic blood transfusion and the increased postoperative infection rates seen in orthopedic surgery patients.

A retrospective review of the incidence of postoperative septic complications in 367 patients from Olmsted County, Minnesota, who underwent 420 elective total hip arthroplasties between 1986 and 1993, was conducted. The infection rates in the exposed patients (those who had perioperatively received allogeneic blood components only or allogeneic and autologous blood components) were compared with those in the untransfused patients and patients who received only autologous blood. The study had sufficient statistical power to detect a deleterious effect of allogeneic blood transfusion equal to the 2.8-fold effect observed in a recent randomized clinical trial of patients undergoing elective abdominal surgery.

There was no association of allogeneic blood transfusion with postoperative infection (p = 0.226). Nineteen infections occurred in 201 exposed patients (9.5%), as compared to 14 infections in 219 unexposed patients (6.4%).

Allogeneic blood transfusion does not increase the incidence of post-operative septic complications in patients undergoing elective total hip arthroplasty, at least to the extent that the statistical power of this study allowed the determination.