Patient Blood Management Program in Total Hip or Total Knee Arthroplasty

Total hip and knee arthroplasty are among the most common surgical procedures for which blood transfusion is prescribed. Patient blood management program has been proposed to decrease the need for transfusion. This program involve three pillars: preoperative improvement of erythropoiesis, intraoperative reduction of bleeding and postoperative management of anemia. Among the different steps of this program, reduction of bleeding and optimization of anemia are gaining popularity, but preoperative improvement of erythropoiesis is underused. The preoperative step of the blood management program is not systematically used because it requires a complex organization, is considered expensive, and finally because the others available techniques to reduce blood transfusion are easier to implement. The aim of this study was to assess, within a patient blood management program, the effectiveness of erythropoietin on reducing allogenic blood transfusion and anemia in patients requiring elective total hip or knee arthroplasty. "