NoBlood

Anesth Analg 2005;101:325-327
© 2005 International Anesthesia Research Society
doi: 10.1213/01.ANE.0000159158.70532.D0

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CARDIOVASCULAR ANESTHESIA

Recombinant Human Erythropoietin Use in a Critically Ill Jehovah’s Witness After Cardiac Surgery

Susanna Price, MBBS, MRCP, PhD, John R. Pepper, MChir, FRCS, and Siân I. Jaggar, MBBS, FRCA, MD



Departments of Anesthesia and Critical Care and Cardiothoracic Surgery, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Siân Jaggar, MBBS, FRCA, MD, Royal Brompton Hospital, Sydney Street, London SW3 6NP. Address e-mail to s.jaggar@rbh.nthames.nhs.uk . Complex cardiac surgery often requires blood transfusion. Some patients refuse transfusion, even when it is potentially life-threatening to do so. Although recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) has been used to reduce the need for blood transfusion, it has been considered ineffective in critically ill patients. The time course of hematological responses in a Jehovah’s Witness patient with acute renal failure and severe cardiac disease suggests that a trial of rhEPO should be considered for salvage therapy in critically ill patients.

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