[Use of autotransfusion in prosthetic surgery of the abdominal aorta]

Self-transfusion represents a method used for the restoration of haematic losses that, in recent years, has been employed more and more widely in the surgical ambit. The utilisation of this method has become increasingly frequent because of the high diffusion of blood transmitted diseases and of the incidence, not negligible, of complications relative to the transfusions of homologous blood. The techniques that are currently used are: self-donation with predeposit; inter-surgery recovery; hemodilution normal blood volume. The authors report their experience relative to the use of self-transfusion, as self-donation with predeposit and as inter-surgery recovery, employed in the treatment of haemorrhagic complications, from 1990 until now in the Department of I Surgical Clinic of University of Turin, in a series of 48 patients in which were performed infrarenal abdominal aortic repair. In practice this technique did not present any complications.