Effects of pentoxifylline on blood transfusion

We congratulate the authors for their study entitled “Preoperative oral pentoxifylline in case of coronary artery bypass grafting with left ventricular dysfunction (ejection fraction equal to/less than 30%),” published in Anatol J Cardiol 2015; 15: 1014-9. This study evaluated the feasibilty of pentoxifylline when patients with low ejection fraction are considered (1). Systemic inflammatory response is one of the basic parameters that affect the postoperative results of coronary bypass surgery. In this context, pentoxifylline may have positive effects through the inhibition of some of the inflammatory cytokines (2–4). However, the study of Mansourian et al. (1) reveals another interesting result, i.e., a statistical decrease of blood transfusion in the pentoxifylline group. None of the similar studies have obtained this result. How do the authors explain that?