Blood Transfusion Refusal Poses No Risk in Cardiac Patients
Additionally, surgeons operating on Jehovah's Witness patients agree to tolerate a steeper drop of hematocrit levels postoperatively.
"Although some of these practices may be beneficial to all cardiac surgical patients, others are associated with well-documented morbidity, and their effect on long-term survival is uncertain," the authors wrote.
Nevertheless, when the Witness patients and the non-Witness patients who received transfusions were compared, they had similar risks of in-hospital mortality, stroke, atrial fibrillation and renal failure.
However, Witnesses had lower occurrence of postoperative myocardial infarction, prolonged ventilation, and additional operation for bleeding; they also had shorter intensive care unit and postoperative lengths of stay.
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