Jeffrey Carson spent more than a decade persuading hospitals that fewer, resource-saving blood transfusions work just as well as more frequent transfusions for most patients. More recently, the Rutgers internist finished a massive study that indicates a major exception to the rule: anemic heart attack patients. That work, published in late 2023 in the New England Journal of Medicine and reinforced by a combined analysis of patients from several studies this past winter, underpins a just-published recommendation from the Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies (AABB) to give more-frequent transfusions to patients suffering myocardial infarction.
The AABB joins the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association in making this update. Their acute-coronary-syndrome guidelines now state clinicians should consider giving enough transfusions to keep blood hemoglobin, which brings oxygen to cells, near 10 grams per deciliter in anemic patients who have suffered heart attacks – significantly more than the current standard of 7-8 g/dl.
“I’m very proud of this trial,” said Carson, a distinguished professor of medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and provost at Rutgers Health. “To have results that actually will change practice and that are in guidelines in such a short period of time after trial publication (1.5 years) is very rewarding.” To read the full story.