Overall survival in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is correlated with the Number butnotwith the Age of Red Blood Cells Transfused

Red blood cells (RBC) undergo biochemical and morphologic changes during storage and the changes known as “storage lesion” have raised concerns that RBCs stored for lengthy periods could increase mortality risks in patients receiving transfusions.We sought to analyze the association between aged RBCs and intensive care unit admissions, short-term and long-term survivals of patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and the association between overall survival and the number of RBCs transfused up to 100 days after HSCT. We reviewed the data from the Blood Bank database files from November 2008 to December 2009 for 334HSCT patientswho were alive 100 days after HSCT at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The patients were categorized into ICU vs. non-ICU patients after HSCT. We compared the age of RBCs, units of RBCs transfused and patients admitted to the ICU vs. non-ICU patients after HSCT. We found that the number of RBCs transfused correlated with overall survival and not with the age of the red cells transfused before and after HSCT.For both categories of patients: ICU vs. non-ICU patients, our retrospective analysis noted that those who received the most RBC transfusions had the worst survival