Product Details 

Useful for clinicians, policy makers, supervisors, transfusion safety officers, scientists, administrators, and personnel who order blood, Decision Making in Transfusion Medicine examines the policy and clinical decisions being made today in the name of blood safety, often resulting in radical changes in transfusion medicine practice. Although decision making in transfusion medicine is based on a wider range of inputs than solely the best research evidence, the orientation of this book remains evidence-based. In this capacity, the book is intended to serve one of the recurring principles enunciated by the FDA—that decision making must be transparent. This intermediate to advanced book discusses both the evidence supporting and the hotly debated policy alternatives proposed for avoiding the risks of allogeneic blood transfusion.

Topics include:

• The contrast between precautionary principle and evidence-based medicine.
• Causes of, and strategies to reduce, transfusion-related mortality.
• Emerging transmissible infections.
• Pathogen reduction.
• MSM donor deferrals.
• Patient blood management.
• Meta-analysis and equipoise in transfusion medicine.

The book includes a bonus CD-ROM containing three fundamental chapters from Evidence-Based Practice of Transfusion Medicine, which together provide guidance for independently assessing the quality of published studies such as those cited in the book's chapters.

(2011, AABB Press, 318 pages, hard cover, ISBN 978-1-56395-319-4)

View Table of Contents (pdf)

View Preface (pdf)

View Sample Pages (pdf)