RESEARCH ARTICLE
Should We Use Preoperative Epoetin-α in the Mildly Anemic Patient Undergoing Simultaneous Total Knee Arthroplasty?
Lawrence A Delasotta*, 1, Fabio Orozco 2, 3, 4, S. Mehdi Jafari 5, Jamie L Blair 2, Alvin Ong 2, 3, 4
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2013Volume: 7
First Page: 47
Last Page: 50
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-7-47
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001307010047
Article History:
Received Date: 22/11/2012Revision Received Date: 17/1/2013
Acceptance Date: 23/1/2013
Electronic publication date: 22/2/2013
Collection year: 2013
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/) which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Simultaneous knee arthroplasty is associated with significant blood loss. To prevent transfusion, three preoperative doses of epoetin-α were offered to mildly anemic simultaneous knee arthroplasty patients. A retrospective review, using ICD-9 codes, identified twenty patients from 2007-2009. Epoetin-α increased hemoglobin levels preoperatively (12.6 to 13.9, p<0.01). Twenty patients who did not receive epoetin-α were matched to study patients. Study patients were transfused less (55% vs 95%, p=0.012) and had similar inpatient length of stay. The average blood loss without transfusion was 4.6g/dL. The mildly anemic patient is at high-risk for packed red cell transfusion during simultaneous knee arthroplasty. Three preoperative doses of epoetin-α in the mildly anemic patient decreased total transfusions; however, it did not affect inpatient length of stay.
