Autotransfusion in surgical practice.

The authors have used autotransfusion of intraoperatively collected blood in 58 vascular surgery cases over a period of more than two years. The clinical results confirm the experimental and laboratory studies on the quality of the autotransfused blood. A more liberal use of intraoperative autotransfusion is advocated. Intraoperative autotransfusion is a simple, safe, inexpensive and cost-effective technique. It saves homologous banked blood and provides a readily available, compatible, normothermic transfusate with superior hematologic qualities.