Establishment and Verification of a Perioperative Blood Transfusion Model After Posterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion: A Retrospective Study Based on Data From a Local Hospital

Objective: We aimed to analyze the related risk factors for blood transfusion and establish a blood transfusion risk model during the per-ioperative period of posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF). It could provide a reference for clinical prevention and reduction of the risk of blood transfusion during the peri-operative period. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 4,378 patients who underwent PLIF in our hospital. According to whether they were transfused blood or not, patients were divided into the non-blood transfusion group and the blood transfusion group. We collected variables of each patient, including age, sex, BMI, current medical history, past medical history, surgical indications, surgical information, and preoperative routine blood testing. We randomly divide the whole population into training group and test group according to the ratio of 4:1. We used the multivariate regression analyses get the independent predictors in the training set. The nomogram was established based on these independent predictors. Then, we used the AUC, calibration curve and DCA to evaluate the nomogram. Finally, we verified the performance of the nomogram in the validation set. Results: Three or more lumbar fusion segments, preoperative low hemoglobin, with hypertension, lower BMI, and elder people were risk factors for blood transfusion. For the training and validation sets, the AUCs of the nomogram were 0.881 (95% CI: 0.865–0.903) and 0.890 (95% CI: 0.773–0.905), respectively. The calibration curve shows that the nomogram is highly consistent with the actual observed results. The DCA shows that the nomogram has good clinical application value. The AUC of the nomogram is significantly larger than the AUCs of independent risk factors in the training and validation set. Conclusion: Three or more lumbar fusion segments, preoperative low hemoglobin, with hypertension, lower BMI, and elder people are associated with blood transfusion during the peri-operative period. Based on these factors, we established a blood transfusion nomogram and verified that it can be used to assess the risk of blood transfusion after PLIF. It could help clinicians to make clinical decisions and reduce the incidence of peri-operative blood transfusion.