Higher red cell transfusion threshold offers no advantage for treating preterm infants

Very low birthweight infants often need blood transfusions to survive. A National Institutes of Health-funded study suggests that providing a higher threshold of red cells within accepted limits offers no advantage in survival or reduction in neurological impairment over a lower threshold. The research was conducted by Haresh Kirpalani, B.M., of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and colleagues and was funded by the NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. The study appears in The New England Journal of Medicine.