Giving routine blood transfusions to heart failure patients might actually be doing them more harm than good.
medRxiv · March 17, 2026 · 10.64898/2026.03.13.26348365
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The Takeaway
It is a standard clinical assumption that giving blood to a patient with low hemoglobin will aid recovery, but this study of 60,000 people found that transfusion was generally associated with more time spent in the hospital. The findings suggest the extra blood volume may overwhelm a failing heart, challenging a long-standing medical practice.
From the abstract
Background: Anemia is nearly ubiquitous in hospitalized patients with congestive heart failure (CHF), yet little data informs the decision to transfuse blood in this population. Objectives: To determine average and heterogenous effects of blood transfusion in hospitalized patients with CHF. Methods: We performed a multicenter retrospective cohort study with individual treatment effect analysis using the Premier Healthcare Database (2022-2024). Adult patients with CHF hemoglobin concentrations be