[Methods of preoperative hemodilution to reduce homologous blood transfusion]

Many problems arise from homologous blood transfusion in operative patients. The virtues include reduced likelihood of reactions to transfused blood and reduction or elimination of the risk of alloimmunization and transfusion transmitted diseases such as hepatitis C and the human immunodeficiency virus. Provided that skillful surgical technique is applied and the use of blood products is restricted, autologous transfusion techniques (predonation of autologous blood, preoperative plasmapheresis, acute normovolemic hemodilution, and intra- and postoperative blood salvage) can be performed with an acceptable risk for patients. Preoperative collection of blood with hemodilution is a simple method to allow autologous blood transfusion. To have recourse to apheresis techniques allows to increase the number of autologous transfused patients.