Australasian Anaesthesia 2011 - Australian and New Zealand ...

140 Australasian Anaesthesia 2011Intravenous Iron in Surgery and Obstetrics 141Oral Iron• Preoperative oral iron: 2 positive studies one in colorectal surgery and the other orthopaedic surgery foundpreoperative oral iron reduced transfusions.• Postoperative oral iron: 5 RCT’s (4 orthopaedic and 1 cardiac surgery) found that postoperative oral iron wasnot beneficial. 18Intravenous IronOrthopaedics: Intravenous iron use was beneficial in most studies. It was associated with fewer transfusions, lessanaemia, decreased length of stay, and decreased postoperative infections. In some studies it was combined withother modalities such as EPO or cell salvage. This is the most well studied surgical group (mainly joint replacementsurgery).Cardiac Surgery: One RCT and one observational study failed to confirm any benefit from postoperativeintravenous iron.Gynaecological Surgery: One RCT of 76 patients found preoperative iron sucrose superior to oral iron in correctingthe anaemia of women with menorrhagia and Hb