Living without aprotinin: the results of a 5‐year blood saving program in cardiac surgery

Background: After 20 years of regular use in cardiac surgery patients, aprotinin has recently been withdrawn from the market due to many concerns about its safety. For a number of reasons aprotinin has not been available in Italy since 1998. The present study presents an aprotinin‐free treatment protocol applied at our institution during the last 5 years, and aims to verify the results of this protocol in terms of allogeneic blood product transfusions, postoperative blood loss and surgical re‐exploration rate.

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