Atrium Chest-drain Evaluation Trial - 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Does using the Atrium Ocean™ 2050 chest drain autotransfusion system reduce postoperative allogenic blood product use in elective single valve replacement procedures? A prospective patient blinded randomised controlled exploratory study.
IRAS ID
169476
Contact name
John Campbell
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Nottingham Health Science Partners
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 4 days
Research summary
In order to perform surgery to the heart it is necessary to open the chest through a median sternotomy and suspend the function of the heart and lungs by placing the patient on cardiopulmonary bypass. This surgery greatly impacts on blood coagulation, therefore chest drains are routinely inserted to allow the draining of blood from the chest cavity post operatively, removing the risk of associated complications. This resultant loss in the patients circulating volume is often replaced with fluid which reduces their haemoglobin or replaced with banked blood opening the patient to potential well documented transfusion related problems.
One well documented form of post-operative blood management is the reinfusion of the patients own shed mediastinal blood collected in chest drains post-surgery. Theoretical advantages of using patients' own blood in comparison to banked include an increased life span of the cells, the presence of functional platelets, along with near normal levels of clotting factors.
This exploratory study will compare 12 patients who receive post operative chest drain blood to 12 who do not and the resultant impact on blood product transfusions and possible secondary impact on patient recovery and clotting systems. This trial will determine any benefit of autotransfusion of shed mediastinal blood in patients undergoing elective single valve replacement procedures utilising the Atrium Ocean ATS. The Atrium Ocean ATS allows blood to be reinfused in a timely manner without the need to wash or process the blood into its components by using a standard 40 micron microemboli blood filter. By utilising this system we hope to provide an improved service and clinical outcome for our patients while providing potential economic and social benefits to the NHS hospital trust through the reduction of banked blood product use.
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/EM/0132
Date of REC Opinion
29 Apr 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion