[Preoperative hemodilution before elective resections of colorectal cancers for sparing homologous blood transfusion].

The records of 389 patients following elective resection of colorectal carcinoma were analysed in order to examine perioperative transfusion. Preoperative hemoglobin levels of 12.8 g/dl in women and 14.2 g/dl in men were found (p less than 0.01). Only 11% of the patients had an anemia. Increasing age and sex had both a significant relation to decreasing preoperative hemoglobin level and higher frequency of transfusion (p less than 0.01). Women got perioperative more often blood transfusion (84.4%). On an average 2.1 units of blood were transfused. There were no relation to tumor stage or tumor location be found (p greater than 0.01). 48.8% of the patients had attendant diseases. Cardiac insufficiency and pulmonary diseases became more frequent. Excluding all patients with contraindication to preoperative hemodilution it was possible to do preoperative hemodilution by 61.2% of the patients. In conclusion preoperative hemodilution should be done before elective resection of colorectal cancer if there was no contraindications to reduce the number of autologous blood transfusion.