[European transfusion practices: the SANGUIS survey].

The European study group, SANGUIS, tried to understand the transfusion behaviour of 158 teaching hospital surgical teams between october 1990 and september 1991. A partial series of 649 patients, from 20 teaching hospitals from 7 countries, having undergone a first elective total hip replacement is discussed. 15% were not transfused any blood at all. The number of patients transfused varied with the hospital, from 44% to 100%. Those patients transfused homologous blood only were exposed to a mean of 3 donors each. The teams who tended to transfuse more patients also tended to transfuse each of them with a greater number of blood units. There were great variations in each team in the use of blood products as well as blood derivatives and substitutes. Work must be done to obtain convergent practice by reviewing the indications for transfusion in elective surgery, and to increase the use of autotransfusion techniques.