Long‐term survival after blood transfusion

Abstract

Receipt of a blood transfusion can be used as a descriptive epidemiologic index of morbidity in the general population, as it is independently predictive of mortality, adding to the predictive value of age, gender, and previous hospitalization. There is a dose-response relationship between the amount of blood components received and a reduction in the subsequent length of survival. However, when a county's entire population is studied, posttransfusion mortality due to underlying disease is substantially lower than that previously reported in look-back investigations.