"Quotes"

Miscellaneous quotes -- a grab bag of stuff

"We're providing … an explanation for why patients have heart attacks and may die when they get blood transfusions."
Dr. Jonathan Stamler, Duke University

"Despite the prevalence of transfusion, there is scant evidence of its effectiveness."
Deborah Josefson Nebraska, BMJ 2002;325:735 (5 October)

"Stored red blood cells lose their deformability and hence their ability to pass through the microvasculature and unload oxygen."
John C. Marshall, Professor of Surgery, University of Toronto

"Studies showing that skipping transfusions results in faster recoveries -- and therefore lower hospital costs -- has more medical leaders saying the practice should be for everybody."
Kennebec Journal

"Globally, more than 81 million units of whole blood are collected annually."
World Health Organization

"On October 27, 1967, Dr. Lester R. Sauvage .. performs the first bloodless open-heart surgery in [Washington State, USA]."
History.org

"We reviewed the use of predonation as a blood management strategy and came to the conclusion … that it was no longer a reasonable method to reduce transfusion exposure. [Studies showed the practice makes patients anemic before surgery.]"
Dr. Hannon, St. Vincent Hospital

"Bloodless procedures have proven to be safer than blood transfusion because they help eliminate complications resulting from transfusions such as immunosuppression, infection, diseases from emerging pathogens for which our blood supply is not yet tested."
Dr. Patricia Ford, Pennsylvania Hospital

"A person's blood is like his fingerprints -- there are no two types of blood that are exactly alike."
Niels Jerne, 1984 Nobel Prize Recipient

"There is a belief… that surgery will deliver perfect results every time under any circumstances."
Robert M. Kaplan, forensic psychiatrist, Graduate School of Medicine, Wollongong, Australia

"Quality medical care is the capacity of the elements of that care to achieve legitimate medical and nonmedical goals."
Dr. Grant E. Steffen, The Journal of the American Medical Association, July 1, 1988
 
"U.S. physicians are well-trained and well-intentioned... yet most lack formal education in blood component therapy and many injure patients through unnecessary transfusions."
Strategic Blood Management
 
"As a general rule, surgeons have always been taught to keep bleeding to a minimum. What’s changed is the recognition that it’s in the patient’s best interest not to transfuse blood."
Dr. Robert Heary, neurosurgeon, Director of The Spine Center at University Hospital

"The Providence Sunday Journal of May 17, 1953: ‘The Army will henceforth use dextran, a substance made from sugar, instead of blood plasma, for all requirements at home and overseas.’"
The History and Organization of Blood Management, Blackwell Publishing

Speaking of bloodless liver transplant surgery:
"I'm surgically arrogant. Like most surgeons, I love a challenge. Nothing stimulates me more than someone saying this can't be done."
Dr Stephen Pollard, Director of Liver Transplantation at St James's Hospital in Leeds

"We believe there's sufficient evidence… to say … that at least some of the reported cases [of West Nile virus] may be related to transmission by blood and, certainly in the one case, transmission through organ transplantation."
Dr. Jesse Goodman, Deputy Director, FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research

"The isolation of live West Nile virus from a blood product indicates that the virus can survive in some blood components, and probably can be transmitted by transfusion."
Dr. Lyle Petersen, CDC West Nile virus expert

"No validated test for this purpose [testing West Nile Virus] is currently available."
2002 - Dr. Jesse Goodman, Deputy Director, FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research

"Particularly with emerging diseases… as in infectious diseases in general… it's not always possible to predict what the next problem [to the blood supply] will be or to potentially defend or study every single possible problem."
Dr. Jesse Goodman, Deputy Director, FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research

"Fifteen years ago it was found that EPO could be used to stimulate the patient's marrow to make more of their own red cells. In the following five years or so, that virtually abolished the use of blood transfusion in kidney patients."
Dr. Ivor Cavill, Senior fellow in haematology, Cardiff University

"[Blood transfusion] avoidance is usually fairly safe and well tolerated even for patients with a low hemoglobin level."
Dr. Aryeh Shander, MD, Chief of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center

"Despite this large and ever growing body of evidence that blood transfusion behaves like organ transplantation, regulation of its use remains lenient in comparison to other types of transplantation."
Aryeh Shander, Sherri Ozawa, Teekam D Ochani – AORN Journal, 01-JUL2001

"New research from Duke University shows that donor blood looses nitric oxide within two or three hours after being drawn from the body. As the blood looses its nitric oxide, it looses its ability to transport oxygen, therefore it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. At that point, it’s just a volume expander, and we can give that in the form of fluids."
Mary Ann Rouch, Blood Conservation Program Coordinator, Presbyterian Hospital of Plano.

"A National Institutes of Health consensus development panel reviewed the use of blood products and introduced the idea of alternatives. Twelve years after the NIH report, transfusion behavior remains essentially unchanged."
Aryeh Shander, Sherri Ozawa, Teekam D Ochani – AORN Journal, 01-JUL2001

"The American Medical Association endorses autologous blood transfusion -- giving a patient his own blood."
msnbc.com

"Financial and other 'rewards' for donation attract high-risk populations such as drug abusers and sex workers…[the incidence of infectious diseases such as syphilis has risen twenty- to fortyfold during the last few years]."
Dr Alex Gromyko, WHO Regional Office for Europe World Health Organization - United Nations affiliate

"Traditionally, heart surgery is associated with the greatest blood loss of all surgical procedures so it is a technological challenge to routinely perform open-heart surgery without a transfusion."
Charles R. Bridges, MD, ScD, Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Pennsylvania Hospital

"Fuelled by fears of infection and reports of mistakes, patients have increasingly demanded their rights to choice, both in the components given to them as well as to refuse to receive these therapies."
Sazama K., The ethics of blood management. Vox Sang 2007;92:95-102

"The principle of 'patient informed choice' is not practiced universally. Strong paternalistic overlay on physician-patient discussions of blood management are frequently observed… many institutions are not routinely offering all blood management choices to all patients."
Sazama K., The ethics of blood management. Vox Sang 2007;92:95-102

"Transfusion rates in cardiac surgery remain high despite major advances in perioperative blood conservation, with large variations among individual centers. The adoption of available blood conservation techniques, either alone or in combination in patients undergoing cardiac surgery, could result in an estimated 75% reduction of unnecessary transfusions. The success of previously reported blood conservations programs in cardiac surgery should call for a reevaluation of allogeneic transfusion practices in patients undergoing cardiac surgery."
Aryeh Shander, et al

"Blood conservation programs offer a solution to the multiple problems that surround blood use."
American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy Abstract Volume 62(18) September

"Reports from Europe, the USA and elsewhere on evidence-based practice in the field of blood transfusion stress that inadequate training of nurses is a key determinant of poor transfusion-related knowledge and practice of transfusion safety procedures."
Council of Europe

"Goldstien lost only half a pint of blood. [During open-chest surgery.] She left the hospital, fully recovered, 12 days later, and has had no problems with her heart since then."
History.org

"Blood transfusion practices have evolved empirically, with few or no research data supporting them."
Sazama K., The ethics of blood management. Vox Sang 2007;92:95-102