Survival and half-life of red cells salvaged after hip and knee replacement surgery.

The survival of autologous red cells collected intraoperatively has been reported previously. This study measures the survival and half-life of red cells collected 3 hours after hip and knee arthroplasty. For six patients, four having knee replacements and two having hip replacements, the salvaged red cells were labeled with radioactive 51Cr. Peripheral blood was simultaneously labeled with nonradioactive 52Cr. There was no significant difference in the survival or half-life of the salvaged and the venous blood.