Association of Anaesthetists guidelines: the use of blood components and their alternatives
Association of Anaesthetists · 2025 · United Kingdom
Source and licence
- Authors
- Akshay Shah, Andrew A. Klein, Seema Agarwal et al.
- Title
- Association of Anaesthetists guidelines: the use of blood components and their alternatives
- Journal
- Anaesthesia, 2025
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Changes
- Verbatim excerpts; formatting adapted
Full text retrieved 2026-10-27 from Europe PMC · PMC11885198
Licence statement of the original publication
This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This page reproduces excerpts of the original publication; the original is authoritative. It has not been reviewed by a physician, does not state a recommendation of Medelix and does not replace medical advice. The guideline may have been updated since.
Open the original publication →Full text on Europe PMC
Recommendations
We found no explicitly labelled recommendations in this publication; its recommendations are in the running text of the original.
Abstract
Background: The administration of blood components and their alternatives can be lifesaving. Anaemia, bleeding and transfusion are all associated with poor peri‐operative outcomes. Considerable changes in the approaches to optimal use of blood components and their alternatives, driven by the findings of large randomised controlled trials and improved haemovigilance, have become apparent over the past decade. The aim of these updated guidelines is to provide an evidence‐based set of recommendations so that anaesthetists and peri‐operative physicians might provide high‐quality care.
Methods: An expert multidisciplinary, multi‐society working party conducted targeted literature reviews, followed by a three‐round Delphi process to produce these guidelines.
Results: We agreed on 12 key recommendations. Overall, these highlight the importance of organisational factors for safe transfusion and timely provision of blood components; the need for protocols that are targeted to different clinical contexts of major bleeding; and strategies to avoid the need for transfusion, minimise bleeding and manage anticoagulant therapy.
Conclusions: All anaesthetists involved in the care of patients at risk of major bleeding and peri‐operative transfusion should be aware of the treatment options and approaches that are available to them. These contemporary guidelines aim to provide recommendations across a range of clinical situations.
Contents of the original publication
The section headings of the original.
- Recommendations
- What other guidelines currently exist?
- Why were these guidelines developed?
- How and why does this statement differ from existing guidelines?
- Introduction
- Methods
- Results
- Process of transfusion
- Laboratory testing pre‐transfusion
- Red cell transfusion and other blood components
- Major haemorrhage
- Prehospital trauma
- Critical care
- Obstetrics
- Paediatrics
- Cardiac surgery
- Gastrointestinal bleeding
- Drugs that affect coagulation
- Drugs that decrease blood loss
- Discussion
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