Perioperative transfusion in prostatic surgery

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the likelihood of perioperative transfusion in prostate surgery. METHODS: The records of patients who underwent prostate surgery at the Hospital Central de Asturias en 1996 were reviewed. The abstracted patient discharge records, encoded according to the ICD-9-CM, were analyzed for gender, age, diagnosis, surgical and non-surgical procedures, including transfusions of blood products. RESULTS: 29 (14.2%) of 204 operated patients required transfusion. By univariate analysis, the likelihood of requiring transfusion was significantly higher in patients with cancer (28.8%), patients undergoing radical prostatectomy (40%), and those undergoing more than one surgical procedure (21.2%). By multivariate logistic regression analysis, the surgical procedure, age and simultaneous urinary bladder surgery were related with the likelihood of requiring transfusion. The adjusted odds ratio for perioperative transfusion was 10.14 times in radical prostatectomy than in transurethral prostatectomy, 2.67 times for patients more than 75 years than in those aged less, and 2.85 times in patients undergoing simultaneous urinary bladder surgery than those who do not. CONCLUSIONS: Due to the wide range of variability of the adjusted likelihood for transfusion in prostate surgery (3.5% to 83.4%), estimation of the individual likelihood for transfusion could be useful for planning surgical transfusions, pretransfusion tests and autologous transfusion in these patients.