Blood transfusion and disease free survival in cervical carcinoma

Abstract

The case notes of 201 patients who had had radical hysterectomy and pelvic node dissection, with or without postoperative radiotherapy, for stages 1b or 2a cervical carcinoma, were analysed to determine if those who had not been transfused had a longer disease free survival time. When patients were divided into those who had received a blood transfusion and those who had not, no differences were found in patients'' ages, tumour types or length of follow up. Separate analysis of patients treated with or without radiotherapy found no survival advantage for patients not transfused. Similar analysis of the different histopathological tumour types also found no difference in disease free survival for patients not transfused. These results are in contrast to previously published reports that have shown an improvement in disease free survival in patients not transfused.