Acute Normovolemic Hemodilution Versus Standard Intraoperative Management in Patients Having Hepatic Resection and Pancreaticoduodenectomy

Despite improvements in peri-operative outcome, major hepatic resection and pancreaticoduodenectomy remains associated with a high risk of major blood loss and perioperative blood transfusion.The risks associated with allogeneic blood transfusions are well-known, including immunosuppression, incompatible transfusion, and transmission of infectious agents. Clearly, efforts to reduce the use of allogeneic blood products are warranted in order to avoid potential transfusion-related complications, reduce hospital cost and avoid periods of critical blood shortage.

ANH is an approach to blood conservation that involves removal of whole blood from a patient immediately prior to an operation that is likely to be associated with significant blood loss. Following blood removal, euvolemia is restored with crystalloid and/or colloid. The harvested blood, which has a greater red cell mass than the blood lost intraoperatively, is re-infused as needed during the procedure or at the completion of the operation. ANH is more attractive than preoperative autologous blood donation for several reasons: it is technically and logistically much simpler, it requires no special equipment and costs less (no storage or administrative costs), it is associated with a lower chance of administration error, it requires no obligate pre-operative delay and is not associated with a waste of autologous units. In addition, because coagulation factors are preserved and later re-infused, ANH may reduce the need for post-operative fresh frozen plasma (FFP). Additionally, ANH may have an impact on low CVP anesthetic management during partial hepatectomy, which is standard at MSKCC and at many other centers.

The present study will help elucidate the efficacy of ANH as a means of reducing the allogeneic transfusion rate in patients undergoing major hepatic resection. If shown to be effective in reducing the use of allogeneic blood products, ANH will not only impact the current practice of hepatic resectional surgery but may also change current practice in other surgical disciplines.

This will be a prospective randomized study. Eligible patients will be consented for the trial prior to the operation.

Inclusion criteria

• Adults (>18 years).
• Pre-operative hemoglobin concentration >= 11 mg/dl (males); >= 10 mg/dl (females) within 14 days of registration.
• Patients scheduled for resection of 3 or more liver segments for any indication, with or without other planned procedures or patients scheduled for pancreaticoduodenectomy

Exclusion criteria

• A history of active coronary artery disease. Patients with a history of coronary artery disease will be eligible if they have had a cardiac stress study showing no reversible ischemia and normal left ventricular (LV) function within 30 days of operation.
• A history of cerebrovascular disease.
• A history of congestive heart failure.
• A history of uncontrolled hypertension.
• A history of restrictive or obstructive pulmonary disease.
• A history of renal dysfunction (creatinine [Cr] > 1.8).
• Abnormal coagulation parameters (International Normalized Ratio [INR] > 1.5 not on Coumadin, or platelet count < 100,000).
• Presence of active infection.
• Evidence of hepatic metabolic disorder (bilirubin > 2 mg/dl, ALT > 75 U/L in the absence of biliary tract obstruction).
• Pre-operative autologous blood donation.