There are many ways to reduce bleeding during surgery, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:03 — 1.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Operating rooms are often very cold places, but keeping the patient warm actually helps reduce blood loss during surgery, and so does reducing blood pressure. That’s according to Steven Frank, a blood transfusion expert at Johns Hopkins.

Frank: If we can do a controlled hypotension to bring the blood pressure down to say, 20% below normal then we can reduce bleeding that way. Especially for orthopedic and spine surgeries because bone bleeding occurs and that is very dependent on the blood pressure. Your bone is very vascular, so if we can bring your blood pressure from 120/80, say down to 90/60, you can really decrease bleeding.  :31

Frank says blood supplies have been severely limited during the pandemic so a range of strategies to reduce a person’s need for transfusion are utilized. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.