Blood Loss From Tests May Cause Anemia in Patients, Study Finds
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Patients who enter hospitals due to heart attacks may be leaving with anemia caused by laboratory tests that draw too much blood, raising their risk of declining health and death, a study found.
In an analysis of almost 18,000 patients in 57 U.S. hospitals from 2000 to 2008, researchers found that 20 percent of patients who didn’t have anemia when admitted for heart attacks developed moderate to severe cases of the red blood-cell deficiency by the time they left. The study is published today in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.