IJCS | Volume 32, Nº6, November / December 2019

568 Table 1 - Baseline characteristics of participants Variable Non-transfused (N = 171) Mean ± SD or N (%) Transfused (N =100) Mean ± SD or N (%) p-value Age (years) 60.3 ± 13 63.3 ± 12.5 1.0 EuroScore II 2.6 ± 4 9.6 ± 12 < 0.001 Male 111 (65%) 56 (56%) 0.218 Caucasians 159 (93%) 89 (89%) 0.595 Weight (kg) 75 ± 14 73.2 ± 16.7 0.307 Height (cm) 165 ± 10 164 ± 10 0.547 Hypertension 129 (75%) 73 (73%) 0.914 Diabetes 54 (31.5%) 17 (17%) 0.683 Chronic kidney disease 13 (7.6%) 24 (24%) < 0.001 Alcoholism 5 (3%) 5 (5%) 0.573 Smoking 31 (18%) 15 (15%) 0.642 Previous cardiac surgery 9 (5%) 16 (16%) 0.004 Previous myocardial infarction 45 (26%) 26 (26%) 1 Previous stroke 21 (12%) 16 (16.3%) 0.469 Oral anticoagulant or antiplatelet agent (recent use) 32 (18.7%) 28 (28%) 0.086 Left ventricular ejection fraction ≤ 30% 8 (4.7%) 15 (15%) 0.005 Preoperative laboratory values Hemoglobin (g/dL) 13.5 ± 1.4 11.8 ± 2.3 < 0.001 Hematocrit (%) 40 ± 3.7 35.7 ± 6.4 < 0.001 International normalized ratio 1.0 ± 0.2 1.3 ± 1.0 0.001 aPTT (s) 26 ± 3.4 30.5 ± 15 < 0.001 Urea (mg/dL) 45.2 ± 17 56 ± 27 < 0.001 Creatinine (mg/dL) 1.1 ± 0.4 1.5 ± 1.4 0.008 Platelet count (μL) 217.000 ± 55.000 210.000 ± 85.000 0.392 SD: standard deviation; N: number; EuroSCORE II: European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation; aPTT: activated partial thromboplastin time; independent samples t-test for continuous variables or chi-square test for categorical variables. Tagliari et al. Blood transfusion in cardiovascular surgery Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2019;32(6):565-572 Original Article Since most of the risk factors for transfusion cannot be modified, such as surgery type and baseline chronic conditions, it is up to us to focus on those that can be modified or optimized. Thus, Likosky et al., 8 suggested some strategies to reduce the risk of RBC transfusion, including mini circuits to reduce the prime volume (class I, level A), modified ultrafiltration (class I, level A), antifibrinolytic agents (class IIa, level B), centrifugation of salvaged blood (class IIa, level A), and a team for multidisciplinary bloodmanagement (class IIa, level B). 8 Surgenor et al., 7 suggested that the use of RBC transfusions in coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery may be reduced by minimizing hemodilutional anemia with preoperative erythropoietin and iron, use of autologous transfusions, preservation of intravenous fluids, avoidance of blood loss, use of a transfusion