Podcast 128: Bleeding patients, inadvertently, into anemia happens more often than you might think

An article in Archives of Internal Medicine examines what’s called “diagnostic blood loss” — the loss of blood through phlebotomy and not hemorrhage. The effect is the same, however.

According to a study conducted in 57 medical centers among some 18,000 patients with myocardial infarction, one in five became moderately or severely anemic (hemoglobin level under 11) from their hospital stay. That’s a 20% rate of iatrogenic anemia. Two of the study’s authors discuss the work and their proposed fixes to this problem, which most likely isn’t limited to patients with MIs.

Archives of Internal Medicine article (free)

Physician’s First Watch coverage (free)

The post Podcast 128: Bleeding patients, inadvertently, into anemia happens more often than you might think first appeared on Clinical Conversations.