Occipital alopecia after cardiac surgery.

To the Editor: Since 1991, an autologous blood programme for elective surgery has been available here. l Preliminary experience showed that 14% of 66 aatologous donors undergoing cardiac bypass surgery had received no allogeneic red cells but had received allogeneic products other than red cells. 2 It was suggested that, if autologous blood programmes were to have an impact on patient exposure to allogeneic blood products in cardiac surgery, critical appraisal of the need for transfusion of blood products was essential. The results of the study were communicated to medical staff and a further assessment of blood and blood product use in autologous donors undergoing cardiac surgery was conducted from September 1994 to December 1995, during which time 59 of 700 patients undergoing cardiac surgery had autologous blood available. The exposure of autologous blood donors to various nonRBC allogeneic products during both periods of study is compared in the Table. There was a reduction in the number of autologous donors receiving allogeneic non-RBC product, both those receiving allogeneie RBC and those receiving no allogeneic RBC.