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Review
. 2021 Oct;36(7):661-671.
doi: 10.1177/0267659120980375. Epub 2020 Dec 16.

Outcomes of cardiac surgery in Jehovah's Witness patients: A review

Aimee-Louise Chambault  1 , Louise J Brown  1 , Sophie Mellor  1 , Amer Harky  2   3   4   5
Affiliations
Review

Outcomes of cardiac surgery in Jehovah's Witness patients: A review

Aimee-Louise Chambault et al. Perfusion. 2021 Oct.

Abstract

Objective: To review current literature evidence on outcomes of cardiac surgery in Jehovah's Witness patients.

Methods: A comprehensive electronic literature search was done from 2010 to 20th August 2020 identifying articles that discussed optimisation/outcomes of cardiac surgery in Jehovah's Witness either as a solo cohort or as comparative to non-Jehovah's Witnesses. No limit was placed on place of publication and the evidence has been summarised in a narrative manner within the manuscript.

Results: The outcomes of cardiac surgery in Jehovah's Witness patients has been described, and also compared, to non-Witness patients within a number of case reports, case series and comparative cohort studies. Many of these studies note no significant differences between outcomes of the two groups for a number of variables, including mortality. Pre-, intra and post-operative optimisation of the patients by a multidisciplinary team is important to achieve good outcomes.

Conclusion: The use of a bloodless protocol for Jehovah's Witnesses does not appear to significantly impact upon clinical outcomes when compared to non-Witness patients, and it has even been suggested that a bloodless approach could provide advantages to all patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Larger cohorts and research across multiple centres into the long term outcomes of these patients is required.

Keywords: Jehovah’s Witness; blood products; bloodless surgery; cardiac surgery; outcomes; transfusion.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Number of studies screened and included (based on the PRISMA flow diagram).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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