ABS ePoster Library

Introduction:
Blood transfusion in breast cancer surgery patients is becoming rare due to meticulous haemostatic surgical techniques. However, all patients undergoing mastectomy in our hospital have preoperative blood cross match done, at a cost of 10 dollars (USD) per patient. We looked at our mastectomy patients requiring blood transfusion.
Methods:
All consecutive mastectomy patients from January to June 2016 were included from a prospectively maintained computerized database. Patient demographics, haemoglobin levels, reasons and timings of blood transfusion were recorded.
Results:
182 patients underwent mastectomy during 6 months. 170 (93.4%) patients had preoperative blood cross match done. 15 patients (8.2%) required blood transfusion preoperatively for building up their haemoglobin levels (range 7.4-9.9 g/dL, median 9.1 g/dL). 9/15 patients had neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Blood transfusion was carried out on the same day of surgery (n=2), a day before surgery (n=11) or 2 days before surgery (n=2). Cost of blood cross match in these 15 patients needing transfusion was 150 USD compared to 1700 USD cost of cross matching 170 patients. None of our patients required transfusion intra or post-operatively. Cost of blood cross match in 155 patients that never required blood transfusion was 1550 USD.
Conclusions:
None of our mastectomy patients required blood transfusion in emergency situation warranting preoperative cross match in the whole cohort. 8.2% patients needed transfusion preoperatively, where there was ample time to cross match and arrange blood. We recommend that routine preoperative cross match in mastectomy patients can be safely avoided with an additional benefit of saving cost (1550 USD in 6 months)