Measurement of Blood-Loss During Hip Surgery

Background: One of the main problems for physicians is measuring blood-loss during surgery. Despite anesthesiologists and surgeons' understanding of the inaccuracy of visual estimation, it remains the foundation for estimating surgical blood-loss. The goal of this research was to estimate the blood-loss of patients having hip surgery. Method: Total 40 patients were enrolled.Total blood-loss was measured by determining intra-operative and post-operative blood-loss and adding them together. Pre-operatively and 24 hours after surgery, blood samples were collected from the patients to assess hemoglobin and hematocrit. The requirement of blood transfusion was noted. Results: The mean intra-operative, post-operative, and total blood-loss was 489.75 plus or minus123.63ml, 205.43 plus or minus 63.31ml and 695.2 plus or minus 162.44ml respectively. Mean pre-operative and post-operative hemoglobin was 12.30 plus or minus 1.05 and 9.84 plus or minus 0.91 gm/dl respectively, thus drops in hemoglobin was by 2.46 plus or minus  0.14 gm/dl whereas mean pre-operative and post-operative hematocrit was 36.03  plus or minus 3.15% and 29.30 plus or minus 2.36% respectively. There was a drop in hematocrit by 6.73 plus or minus 0.79%. Out of 40, 15(37.5%) patients received blood transfusion post-operatively. Conclusion: Inhip surgerymost of the intra-operative and post-operative blood-loss occurs in the initial 24 hours of surgery. Intra-operative blood-loss and transfusion rate are not adequate predictors of total blood-loss.