The Effect of Blood Transfusion on the Survival of Children with Both Severe Anemia and Bacterial Meningitis.

ABSTRACT: In areas with suboptimal resources, blood transfusion may not be feasible even when mandatory for severely anemic children with a life-threatening disease. We evaluated how much not having received a transfusion affected the survival in 171 children with an admission blood hemoglobin level of < 6 g/dL and bacterial meningitis in Luanda, Angola. Of these children, 75% (128 of 171) had received a blood transfusion during hospitalization, but 25% (43 of 171) had not. Within the first week, 33% of patients (40 of 121) with transfusion and 50% (25 of 50) without a transfusion died (P = 0.04). Early transfusion (days 1-2 of hospitalization) prolonged the time of survival from a median of 132 hours [interquartile range (IQR), 15-168] to 168 hours (IQR, 69-168; P = 0.004), and had odds of 0.49 (95

SUBMITTER: Pelkonen T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10077012 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature