ASO Author Reflections: Association of Perioperative Red Blood Cell Transfusion with Increased Disease Recurrence and Worse Survival After Resection of Distal Cholangiocarcinoma

Excerpt

Distal cholangiocarcinoma (DCC) is a rare and deadly periampullary cancer that arises from the epithelium of the distal third of the common bile duct.1 While there are a number of prognostic factors that impact survival in patients with DCC, including tumor size, tumor differentiation, and positive lymph nodes, these factors are primarily a manifestation of tumor biology, limiting clinicians in their ability to intervene to improve patient survival.2 When considering controllable prognostic factors, multiple studies have reported an independent association between perioperative packed red blood cell (pRBC) transfusion and poor prognosis, as well as postoperative morbidity in cancer patients.3^,4 Although worse outcomes have been noted among transfused patients in many malignancies, no studies to date have specifically assessed the prognostic association in DCC. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the association between pRBC transfusion with both disease recurrence and overall survival (OS) among patients with DCC using a multi-institutional patient cohort from various academic institutions across the US.5 …