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Old Tue Oct 9, 2007, 04:02 PM
Neil Cuadra Neil Cuadra is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Los Angeles, California
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Those are interesting articles, both about the same research.

The researchers at Duke University identified a potential problem, but also its solution. They found that nitric oxide (N.O.) is necessary to make transfused blood effective, but that the N.O. levels in blood start to deplete within hours of its donation. So it's a potential problem even with recently donated blood. Their solution is to add N.O. back to the banked blood before it is transfused. As they point out, this warrants further study.

As for when to transfuse (how low to let a patient's hematocrit go), doctors will continue to have differing opinions.
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