"QUOTES"

Demographics

"Bloodless surgery has slowly, but increasingly, crossed over to mainstream patients."
Health Industry Today – Dec 1998

"A minority of patients having cardiac procedures (15% to 20%) consume more than 80% of the blood products transfused at operation."
Society of Thoracic Surgeons Blood Conservation Guideline Task Force

"Patients enrolling in bloodless surgery programs [are] ‘proactive’ people who are aware that they have choices about health care and expect medical professionals to respect their decisions. This attitude is a considerable change from the ‘doctor knows best’ passive acceptance that characterized previous generations of patients."
Encyclopedia of Surgery

"The elderly utilize a disproportionate quantity of blood resources."
The Anemia Action Counsel and The American Society for Clinical Pathology

"10% to 15% of patients requesting bloodless surgery [do so] for other than religious reasons. Some facilities report rates as high as 25%."
Health Industry Today – Dec 1998  

"As of 2003, the elderly comprise about 13% of the American population, but use about 25% of transfused blood."
Encyclopedia of Surgery

"An estimate that 20,000-30,000 [bloodless surgeries] procedures [are] performed annually in the USA is not unreasonable."
Health Industry Today – Dec 1998  

"At Englewood Hospital the transfusion rate among patients receiving coronary artery bypass grafting is down to 8 percent."
Dr. Aryeh Shander

"Elderly patients and patients who stayed longer in intensive care were more likely than other patients to be given a transfusion."
BMJ 2002;325:735 (5 October, 2007)

"[In] the most recent year for which figures are available, between 12 million and 14 million units of blood were used in transfusions in the United States alone."
The New York Times, February 18, 1990