Improved postoperative outcomes and reduced transfusion rates after implementation of a Patient Blood Management program in gastric cancer surgery

Gastric cancer patients are often transfused with red blood cells, with negative impact on postoperative course. This multicenter prospective interventional cohort study aimed to determine whether implementation of a Patient Blood Management (PBM) program, was associated with a decrease in transfusion rate and improvements in clinical outcomes in gastric cancer surgery. We compared transfusion practices and clinical outcomes in patients undergoing elective gastric cancer resection before and after implementing a PBM program, including strategies to detect and treat anemia and restrictive transfusion practice (2014–2018). Primary outcome was transfusion rate (TR). Secondary outcomes were complications, reoperations, length of stay, readmissions, 90-day mortality and failure-to-rescue. Differences were adjusted by confounding factors. Some 789 patients were included (496 pre- and 293 post-PBM). TR decreased from 39.1% to 27.0% (adjusted difference −9.1, 95% CI -15.2 to −2.9), being reduction particularly significant in patients with anemia, ASA score 3–4, locally advanced tumors, undergoing open surgery and total gastrectomy. Infectious complications diminished from 25% to 16.4% (−6.1, 95%CI -11.5 to −0.7), reoperations from 8.1% to 6.1% (−2.2, 95%CI -5.1 to +0.6), median length of stay from 11 [IQR 8–18] to 8 [7–12] days (p