Impact of a programme of autologous blood donation on the incidence of infection in patients with colorectal cancer

Objective: To assess the effects of both autologous and homologous blood transfusion on the incidence of infective complications after elective operations for colorectal cancer. Design: Prospective open study. Setting: University hospital, Italy. Interventions: Recording of variables known to influence the development of infection. Main outcome measures: Infective morbidity and mortality. Results. Fifty-three patients (33%) deposited their own blood. Eighty-six of the 161 (53%) patients were transfused, 36 were given autologous blood, 48 homologous blood and 2 both autologous and homologous blood. These two were excluded from the analysis. Infective complications developed in 28 patients (17%), of which 7/75 (9%) were in patients who had not been transfused, 5/56 (14%) in patients given autologous transfusion, and 16/48 (33%) in patients given homologous transfusions (p <0.001). Multivariate analysis identified homologous blood transfusion as the only variable significantly associated with the development of postoperative infective complications. No patient died. Conclusion: Transfusion of autologous blood was associated with significantly fewer postoperative infective complications than transfusion of homologous blood or no blood transfusion.