Anesthesia & Analgesia
Meta-analysis of 42 RCTs (3,420 patients) showing that acute normovolemic hemodilution (ANH) reduces both the need for transfusion and the volume of allogeneic blood used in cardiac surgery. Supports ANH as a practical blood-conservation technique.
Acute normovolemic hemodilution significantly reduced the proportion of patients receiving allogeneic RBC transfusion (risk ratio 0.74; 95% CI 0.63–0.88).