Predeposit autologous blood transfusions in patients undergoing irradiation and radical cystectomy.

We have used blood withdrawn electively and frozen for later use by the donor in 25 patients with bladder cancer who were treated by preoperative irradiation and radical cystectomy. Patients donated 1 to 5 units of blood (average 3.4 per patient). We transfused 10 patients with only autologous blood, whereas 15 required some homologous blood in addition to their own banked blood. The program was well tolerated and repeated blood donation did not compromise the effectiveness of preoperative irradiation. Our preliminary data show that this program reduces the dependence on volunteer donor homologous blood transfusions for cystectomy, thus, decreasing the potential risk of an adverse reaction and avoiding seasonal blood bank shortages.