TRANSFUSION: Platelet-to-erythrocyte ratio and mortality in patients with hemorrhagic trauma: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Uncontrolled bleeding remains one of the leading causes of preventable post-injury death

Figure 1: Selection process flow chart

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of hemorrhagic trauma patients (age ≥16 years) who received platelet transfusions between 1946 and October 2020 were screened from Pubmed, Medline, and Embase

Figure 1: The overall quality of the studies was moderate, as shown in Figure 2

Figure 2: High platelet:plasma, but not high plasma:RBC ratio increases 24-hour and 30-day mortality in randomized controlled trials

Figure 3: High platelet:erythrocyte ratio has no effect on thromboembolic events or organ failure in trauma patients in randomized controlled trials

However, this systematic review also has several limitations, such as the method of calculating the platelet:erythrocyte ratio, resulting in possible overlap of transfusion ratios in the high-ratio and low-ratio groups, which may affect the analysis

Original source:

Kleinveld DJB, van Amstel RBE, Wirtz MR, Geeraedts LMG, Goslings JC, Hollmann MW, Juffermans NP.