Health Care–Associated Infection After Red Blood Cell Transfusion

The association between red blood cell (RBC) transfusion strategies and health care-associated infection is not fully understood.

To evaluate whether RBC transfusion thresholds are associated with the risk of infection and whether risk is independent of leukocyte reduction. DATA SOURCES: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science Core Collection, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Sytematic Reviews, ClinicalTrials.gov, International Clinical Trials Registry, and the International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number register were searched through January 22, 2014. STUDY SELECTION: Randomized clinical trials with restrictive vs liberal RBC transfusion strategies. DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS: Twenty-one randomized trials with 8735 patients met eligibility criteria, of which 18 trials (n = 7593 patients) contained sufficient information for meta-analyses. DerSimonian and Laird random-effects models were used to report pooled risk ratios. Absolute risks of infection were calculated using the profile likelihood random-effects method. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Incidence of health care-associated infection such as pneumonia, mediastinitis, wound infection, and sepsis.