Figure 3.
Exploratory forest plots of the effect of 2 strategies. Restrictive or no prophylaxis strategy (as defined by the study authors) vs a liberal strategy (as defined by the study authors) on major bleeding (A) and all-cause mortality (B) from randomized trials of platelet transfusions recruiting ∼100 patients or >100 patients. Study definitions vary and analysis included all settings although more commonly hematological cancers. No prophylaxis strategies for platelet transfusion were applied unless there was evidence of clinically significant bleeding. Restrictive transfusion strategies advocated platelet transfusions at thresholds ranging from 10 × 109/L to 25 × 109/L. Slichter et al19 compared 3 different doses of platelets; for the purposes of this analysis, we selected the low- and high-dose arms.