Impact of Blood Salvage Therapy on Outcomes After Oncologic Liver Surgery

Blood salvage therapy in oncologic liver surgery is seldom used based on unproven concerns about the safety of the technique regarding potential cancer dissemination or recurrence. Nevertheless, the technique has proven advantages in other surgical settings regarding the allogenic transfusion outcomes. Allogenic blood transfusion has been scientifically proven to worsen prognosis in oncologic surgery. This study compares a cohort of patients systematically exposed the blood salvage therapy to one comparable cohort without the therapy and outcomes regarding transfusion rates, post-operative Hb measurement, recurrence, overall survival, and post-operative adverse events.