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Risks and benefits of transfusion for children with severe anemia in Africa

Severe anemia contributes significantly to child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Blood transfusion is used in emergencies but carries risks. In BMC Medicine, Olupot-Olupot and colleagues report the findings of a phase II trial in children with severe anemia in Eastern Uganda. They provide important...

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Autores principales: Brick, Thomas, Peters, Mark J
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3999736/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24767140
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-12-68
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author Brick, Thomas
Peters, Mark J
author_facet Brick, Thomas
Peters, Mark J
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description Severe anemia contributes significantly to child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Blood transfusion is used in emergencies but carries risks. In BMC Medicine, Olupot-Olupot and colleagues report the findings of a phase II trial in children with severe anemia in Eastern Uganda. They provide important early safety and efficacy data supporting large volume whole blood transfusion (30 ml/kg) compared with the World Health Organization recommendation of 20 ml/kg. Large volume transfusions result in more rapid and frequent correction of severe anemia; they can be expected to reduce the risk of transfusions, and help manage the scarce resource of donor blood. However, severe anemia arises from varying combinations of acute, sub-acute and chronic etiologies. The Fluid Expansion As Supportive Therapy study reminds us that the risks and benefits of even simple interventions are complex, and that rapid normalization of physiology may not always be the best strategy. There is no substitute for high quality evidence and to this end we strongly support Olupot-Oluput and colleagues’ call for a definitive trial of large volume transfusions in severe anemia. Please see related research article http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/12/67/abstract.
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spelling pubmed-39997362014-04-26 Risks and benefits of transfusion for children with severe anemia in Africa Brick, Thomas Peters, Mark J BMC Med Commentary Severe anemia contributes significantly to child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Blood transfusion is used in emergencies but carries risks. In BMC Medicine, Olupot-Olupot and colleagues report the findings of a phase II trial in children with severe anemia in Eastern Uganda. They provide important early safety and efficacy data supporting large volume whole blood transfusion (30 ml/kg) compared with the World Health Organization recommendation of 20 ml/kg. Large volume transfusions result in more rapid and frequent correction of severe anemia; they can be expected to reduce the risk of transfusions, and help manage the scarce resource of donor blood. However, severe anemia arises from varying combinations of acute, sub-acute and chronic etiologies. The Fluid Expansion As Supportive Therapy study reminds us that the risks and benefits of even simple interventions are complex, and that rapid normalization of physiology may not always be the best strategy. There is no substitute for high quality evidence and to this end we strongly support Olupot-Oluput and colleagues’ call for a definitive trial of large volume transfusions in severe anemia. Please see related research article http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/12/67/abstract. BioMed Central 2014-04-25 /pmc/articles/PMC3999736/ /pubmed/24767140 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-12-68 Text en Copyright © 2014 Brick and Peters; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Commentary
Brick, Thomas
Peters, Mark J
Risks and benefits of transfusion for children with severe anemia in Africa
title Risks and benefits of transfusion for children with severe anemia in Africa
title_full Risks and benefits of transfusion for children with severe anemia in Africa
title_fullStr Risks and benefits of transfusion for children with severe anemia in Africa
title_full_unstemmed Risks and benefits of transfusion for children with severe anemia in Africa
title_short Risks and benefits of transfusion for children with severe anemia in Africa
title_sort risks and benefits of transfusion for children with severe anemia in africa
topic Commentary
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3999736/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24767140
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-12-68
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