Pilot Study of Sex-matched vs. Sex-mismatched Red Blood Cell Transfusion

Summary

Blood transfusion is common for patients in hospital, especially for those in intensive care. Patients receive blood that is matched to them based on their blood group (A, B, AB, O), but not based on sex. This means male or female patients may receive male or female blood. There is some evidence to suggest that giving male patients female blood and female patients male blood (sex-mismatched blood) may be harmful. The investigators think giving males only male blood and females only female blood (sex-matched blood) will be better for the patients and improve their survival. To test this, the study team will randomly give 50% of intensive care patients who require blood only sex-mismatched blood and 50% of intensive care patients only sex-matched blood for their entire hospital stay. Then, health data of patients will be collected to see if either group does better after transfusion. Before this is done as a large study with thousands of patients, it will be attempted as a smaller pilot study with a few hundred patients to be sure the processes suggested make sense and are possible for hospitals and for the blood supplier to follow.

Timeline

Start

2022-01-07

Primary completion

2022-05-27

Completion

2023-02-28

Publications

• Radford M, Estcourt LJ, Sirotich E, Pitre T, Britto J, Watson M, Brunskill SJ, Fergusson DA, Doree C, Arnold DM. Restrictive versus liberal red blood cell transfusion strategies for people with haematological malignancies treated with intensive chemotherapy or radiotherapy, or both, with or without haematopoietic stem cell support. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2024 May 23;5(5):CD011305. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD011305.pub3.

Drugs

Indications