Do Anesthesiologists Follow Guidelines on Perioperative Use of Tranexamic Acid?

Tranexamic acid has been used to reduce bleeding and transfusion for years. Randomized studies showed its efficacity in orthopedic surgery, trauma and post-partum hemorrhage. Few data were available for other types of surgery and the safety profile of tranexamic use was nor clearly established. In april 2022, the results from the POISE-3 (Perioperative Ischemic Evaluation - 3) trial was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. This stdy clearly demonstrated in 9535 patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery, that the use of tranexamic acid significantly reduced not only perioperative bleeding, but also transfusions. The safety profile of tranexamic acid was very good in this trial. This publication was rapidly followed by editorials in major anesthesia journals, calling for "safe surgery" with a systematic use of tranexamic acid in the population studied in the POISE-3 trial. A literature review was done with a formal presentation at Erasme University Hospital, again with the call for a systematic use in appropriate patients.

In this study, the adherence to these recommendations will be tested. All patients operated between october 1st 2022 and december 31 st 2022 will be included. For every patient, it will be determined if this patient should have received tranexamic acid according to the results of the POISE-3 trial and wether this patient really did get tranexamic acid. Primary endpoint will be the percentage (%) of patients correctly treated according to the POISE-3 recommendations. A second primary endpoint will be the comparison with patients operated between October 1st 2021 and december 31st 2021; that means before the publication of the recommendations. The difference between both populations will be tested with a Chi-square test. Secondary outcomes wil be bleeding and transfusion in the correctly treated population compared with an eventually not correctly treated population.