The Anemia Institute for Research and Education Award is selected by the Canadian Anesthesiologists' Society's Cardiovascular/Thoracic Section. This award is given annually to a Canadian for the best student paper on a topic related to anemia or blood conservation/ utilization. The CCS scientific program committee determines the winner each June.

Dr. Robin Varghese, 2009
R Varghese

To Transfuse or Not To Transfuse, That Was the Question

As a student, Dr. Robin Varghese wasn’t interested in cardiac surgery until he saw the night-and-day difference in post-operative patients.

“We could give back their lives to patients who couldn’t do much before,” he says. “It made all the difference for me.”

With a strong desire to excel that came from his parents and an equally strong Christian ethic that plays a factor in his attitude to life, he is delighted to see results in whatever he does.

In collaboration with his mentor, Dr. Mary Lee Myers, Dr. Varghese recently studied whether elderly postoperative cardiac surgery patients faired better if transfused liberally (Hgb < 90g/l) or restrictively (<70g/l).

“Our goal is to get cardiac patients out of hospital in 5-7 days and active again,” he says. “So we compared quality of life and functional outcomes in both groups of patients after six weeks.”

Dr. Varghese was hoping there would be no difference. He was right.

“So we don’t need to give them so much blood early,” he says. “Instead, we can wait until their haemoglobin falls further, thereby avoiding the potential complications of transfusions, certainly decrease the cost involved and have the same functional outcomes.”

Cardiac surgeons are among the most prolific users of blood products of all the specialties. This study gives them the confidence to transfuse more moderately.

“We reduced the need for transfusions by 92 percent,” says Dr. Varghese.