Effect of tranexamic acid on postoperative bleeding and allogeneic transfusion in on-pump cardiac surgery (original) (raw)

aprotinin were excluded. We analysed the data of patients who received tranexamic acid (TA group) with those who did not (NTA group). Our primary outcome measure was the exposure to packed red blood cells (RBC) following surgery in both groups. Our secondary outcome measures were the exposure to fresh frozen plasma (FFP) and total blood products, the proportion of patients returned to theatre because of blood loss and length of ICU stay. We performed chi-squared tests to assess differences between the groups in the proportion of patients who received RBC or FFP or total blood products and who returned to theatre. We performed Mann-Whitney tests to assess differences between the distributions of the use of RBC, FFP and total blood products and the length of ICU stay. Then we used multivariate logistic regression to adjust for the effect of other variables: age, sex, bypass time, EuroSCORE, BMI, time period, surgery type, priority, aspirin use, clopidogrel use, consultant surgeon and consultant anaesthetist. Results: The TA group had 3359 (80.1%) patients and NTA group had 832 (19.9%) patients and exposure to blood products was 45.9% and 51.3% respectively (P ϭ 0.005). There was no statistical difference between the two groups in sex, BMI, surgery type and priority.