ArticleJournal of intensive care2025
Dose-response relationship between transfusion and the incidence of infection in critically ill patients: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis.
Article in Journal of intensive care, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Association between red blood cell transfusion volume and infection risk: a dose-response analysis of a nationwide trauma registry.Critical care (London, England) · 2026Observational
- Dose-response relationship between transfusion and the incidence of infection in critically ill patients: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis.Journal of intensive care · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeTo estimate the association between red blood cell (RBC) transfusion volume and hospital-acquired infections (HAI) in critically ill patients, with a particular focus on identifying the potential threshold volumes at which infection risk changes.
methodsThe MEDLINE, CENTRAL, Embase, and Transfusion Evidence Library databases were searched for studies published from database inception to November 2024. Citation searches and reference checks of the relevant guidelines were combined. Studies that evaluated transfusion and anemia pharmacotherapy in critically ill patients were included. Outcome of interest was the incidence of HAI. We conducted a dose-response meta-analysis (DRMA) using a one-stage random-effects model.
resultsWe identified 39,453 records after searching the databases. After combining the results of citation searches and reference checks of the guidelines, 45 studies were eligible. For the DRMA, we eliminated 14 studies without results and 15 with a critical risk of bias. We included 9587 patients from 16 studies. Our DRMA showed a non-linear risk curve, with odds ratio for HAI decreasing and reaching a trough at three units of RBC transfusion. Three units of RBC may not increase the risk of HAI in critically ill patients. However, the clinical implications of higher RBC transfusion volumes remain unclear.
conclusionsOur findings suggest a non-linear relationship between RBC transfusion volume and HAI risk in critically ill patients, highlighting the need for further research to inform individualized transfusion strategies. Clinical Trial Registration http://osf.io/a9cwd.
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