Figure 1.
The evidence-base of RBC transfusion strategies. Patients enrolled in 32 RCTs are grouped into nine major categories (in italic bold font). Detailed patient characteristics in individual trials are omitted for simplicity. Each RCT is labeled with trial acronym or the first author and year of publication. Limited space does not allow listing all references, but all studies except TITRe26 and PINT38 have been included in a recent meta-analysis.5 *Pediatric patients; **extremely low birth weight infants; †exclusion criteria of the study explicitly mentioned certain hematologic conditions (eg, any preoperative anemia, chronic anima, or hemolytic anemia).