Patient Blood Management in Cardiac Surgical Patients: the ICARUS-2 Study

A significant percentage of patients schduled for cardiac surgery have an absolute or relative iron deficiency (ID) with or without anemia. Preoperative outpatient treatment of anemia and iron deficiency is one of the pillars of patient blood management (PBM). Data collected at our institution show that 35% of patients undergoing cardiac surgery at the Foundation receive 2 or more units of concentrated red blood cells at surgery or in the following 7 days. A recently published ambispective study (ICARUS) demonstrated that intravenous iron supplementation, even in the immediate pre-operative period (i.e 1 or 2 days), reduces the number of post-operative transfusions and the length of hospital stay. Similar results were recently obtained by other authors in a randomized study. Assuming the correction of ID at an earlier stage, the haematological outcome could be significantly better, with a reduction in the percentage of patients transfused and in the average transfusion requirement, increase in haemoglobin levels at discharge, improvement in clinical conditions and possible further reduction of the length of stay. All this could translate into a further reduction in costs related to the intervention.

The study is observational and involves the early application of the PBM program based on good clinical practice which includes the correction of absolute or relative ID. This deficiency will be treated at least 2 weeks before the planned cardiac surgery: the patient will receive an i.v. of iron in the clinic, in accordance with the indications, doses and route of administration for which the use of the drug is approved and the drug distributed on the market. At the same time as iron administration, vitamin supplementation will be prescribed (Vitamin B12 1 mg total subcutaneously) and oral folic acid (5 mg/day).