Sobrevida después de transfusión en pacientes del Hospital Universitario del Valle

Introduction: No body knows about the survival and the characteristics of transfusion recipients; however, this information is key to evaluate the cost benefit or effectiveness of the measures introduced for improvement the security of the alogenics transfusions. Materials and methods: Hospital and blood banks records were collected on all patients at University Hospital of Valle in Cali, Colombia, from January through December 1997 (12,567 transfusion episodes) and a random sample (1,189 transfusion episodes). All patients were then matched with the national register of deaths in Colombia during a three years follow-up. Results: The mean patient age was 42 years and the mean transfusion total was 3.2 units by episode. Only 17% of the patients was more than 65 years, 69% under the age of 40 years, and 14.%5 under one year. About 57 % were men. All patients, 38.2% were surgical and 62% treated medically. Of the 1054 patients whose survival was investigated, 73.7% were alive after one year, 67.3% after two years and 65.5% after three years. Survival was lower in those receiving platelets and larger than 10 units. Conclusion: The survival of patients transfused in the University Hospital of Valle differs of estimates of other studies. This difference has implications for the estimations of cost-effectiveness of blood donors screening for infectious disease