ABSTRACT

Significant blood loss occurs in spine surgery even in routine situations. There are multiple reasons of blood loss and most of them are unpreventable. Blood transfusion to correct blood loss may cause complications and may increase mortality and morbidity. Unfortunately, perioperative unnecessary blood transfusion frequently occurs in clinical practices. In order to decrease blood transfusion there are several techniques which are restrictive blood transfusion strategy, correct patient position, use of antifibrinolytic agents, controlled hypotension, acute normovolemic hemodilution, preoperative autologous blood donation and cell-saver usage. In this article, all these techniques described briefly. The aim of this article is preventing hidden and neglected complications related to blood transfusion.