Blood Transfusion Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Blood Transfusion, including details on blood donation, blood types, leukemia.

Current status of artificial O2 carriers.

Thyes C, Spahn DR

Department of Anesthesiology, University Hospital Lausanne, (CHUV) CH-1011 Lausanne, Switzerland.

This article describes currently evaluated artificial O2 carriers, summarizes their efficacy, and discusses their side effects, based on and restricted to published data. For compounds in phase III testing, approximately 500 to 1000 patients have been dosed, and similar numbers of control patients have been investigated. For compounds in phase I or II testing, the number of patients dosed is significantly less. Unfortunately, there is a significant amount of nonpublished data, which renders the overall assessment difficult, and the direct comparison among different types of artificial O2 carriers is significantly limited by the virtual nonexistence of studies that directly compare different products.

Published 30 May 2005 in Anesthesiol Clin North America, 23(2): 373-89, viii.
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