The Association of Peri-Procedural Blood Transfusion with Morbidity and Mortality in Patients Undergoing Percutaneous Lower Extremity Vascular Interventions: Insights from BMC2 VIC.

Objective: To determine the predictors of periprocedural blood transfusion and the association of transfusion on outcomes in high risk patients undergoing endoluminal percutaneous vascular interventions (PVI) for peripheral arterial disease.

Methods/results: Between 2010-2014 at 47 hospitals participating in a statewide quality registry, 4.2% (n = 985) of 23,273 patients received a periprocedural blood transfusion. Transfusion rates varied from 0 to 15% amongst the hospitals in the registry. Using multiple logistic regression, factors associated with increased transfusion included female gender (OR = 1.9; 95% CI: 1.6-2.1), low creatinine clearance (1.3; 1.1-1.6), pre-procedural anemia (4.7; 3.9-5.7), family history of CAD (1.2; 1.1-1.5), CHF (1.4; 1.2-1.6), COPD (1.2; 1.1-1.4), CVD or TIA (1.2; 1.1-1.4), renal failure CRD (1.5; 1.2-1.9), pre-procedural heparin use (1.8; 1.4-2.3), warfarin use (1.2; 1.0-1.5), critical limb ischemia (1.7; 1.5-2.1), aorta-iliac procedure (1.9; 1.5-2.5), below knee procedure (1.3; 1.1-1.5), urgent procedure (1.7; 1.3-2.2), and emergent procedure (8.3; 5.6-12.4). Using inverse weighted propensity matching to adjust for confounders, transfusion was a significant risk factor for death (15.4; 7.5-31), MI (67; 29-150), TIA/stroke (24; 8-73) and ARF (19; 6.2-57). A focused QI program was associated with a 28% decrease in administration of blood transfusion (p = 0.001) over 4 years.

Conclusion: In a large statewide PVI registry, post procedure transfusion was highly correlated with a specific set of clinical risk factors, and with in-hospital major morbidity and mortality. However, using a focused QI program, a significant reduction in transfusion is possible.