Ahmad Gharehbaghian, Kharaja m G Hque, Carol Truman, Rachael Evans, Ruth Morse, John Newman, Gordon Bannister, Chris Rogers, Benjamin A Bradley
The Lancet, vol 363, March 27, 2004
Aim: To investigate the immunomodulatory effect of different types of postoperative blood transfusion by studying the frequency of natural killer cell precursors (NKp)
Method: 120 patients in 5 groups - NKp frequency measured
No transfusion (32)
- Allogeneic non-leukodepleted blood (8)
- Allogeneic leukodepleted blood (30)
- Autologous predonated blood (10)
- Autologous salvaged blood (40)
Results: NKp frequency decreased in all groups except the autologus filtered blood group, where the frequency increased with the blood tranfusion
Conclusion: Immunosuppression is reversed by transfusion of autologous salvaged blood, suggesting that the blood contains immunostimulants.