Pharmacological Interventions to Prevent the Need for Blood and Blood Component Therapies:

SUMMARY This article will focus on the differences between the protease inhibitor aprotinin and the lysine analogue antifibrinolytics in avoiding the need for transfusions of blood and blood components following surgical procedures. While transfusion of blood and blood components can be life‐saving, this course of action is not justified nor universally safe or effective in all circumstances. This is especially true of patients expected to have an increased risk of major hemorrhage or of blood and blood component requirements. Such operative procedures include cardiac, hepatic and orthopedic/trauma surgery. Discussion of this article will concentrate primarily on the efficacy of pharmacological agents in the first two types of interventions, namely cardiac and hepatic, and will mention orthopedic/trauma surgery only briefly.