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Prehospital whole blood no mortality benefit
Prehospital whole blood transfusion in traumatic hemorrhagic shock: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Injury · Added 1 October 2026
Systematic review and meta-analysis of prehospital whole blood transfusion in traumatic haemorrhagic shock; abstract not yet available (ahead-of-print), so no findings can be reported yet.
- Study type
- Systematic review
- Design
- Systematic review and meta-analysis (random-effects) of RCTs and comparative cohorts
- Participants
- 4,040 adult trauma patients (1,558 whole blood; 2,482 standard care) across 6 studies
- Main finding
- No significant reduction in 24-hour mortality (RR 1.00, P=0.98) or 28/30-day mortality (RR 1.09, P=0.30); reduced 24-hour red cell requirements (MD -0.97, P=0.03) lost significance on sensitivity analysis
- Caveat
- Certainty of evidence very low to moderate; secondary signal driven by observational cohorts at serious risk of bias
- Bottom line
- Supports current practice
Why it matters in Australia (Low relevance). whole blood is not in the extracted ACTAS formulary (would need a guideline change to adopt) and with no abstract the findings can't yet be assessed; QAS, AV, SJWA and NSWA do carry prehospital blood.
Learning goal
Weigh the benefits and limitations of prehospital whole blood transfusion in traumatic haemorrhagic shock.
More
- Topic: Trauma
- Daily scan: 1 October 2026
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