In trauma patients with severe blood loss, if transfusions are working, physicians should not stop giving them to patients regardless of the amount of blood used, and whole blood should be used first, according to new research at UTHealth Houston.
The study, led by senior author Bryan Cotton, MD, MPH, professor and John B. Holmes Professor in the Clinical Sciences with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, was published this month in The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery.
“When looking at our experience here locally, there really isn’t a blood transfusion number where you should stop,” Cotton said. “There are plenty of lab markers and plenty of physiology, blood pressure, and vital sign monitors where you can say, ‘We’re not getting this patient back. This patient is absolutely not going to survive.’ But by using and looking at just blood transfusion numbers, we did not really find a point where there are no survivors.”