Blood Transfusion Trends in the United States, National Inpatient Sample, 2015-2018.

Abstract (200 words) Blood transfusions are among the most common therapeutic procedures performed in hospitalized patients. This study evaluates contemporary national trends in RBC, plasma, platelet and cryoprecipitate transfusions. National Inpatient Sample (NIS), the largest all-payer inpatient database representing 94-97% of US population, was evaluated from the 4th quarter of 2015 through 2018. Quarterly trends for the percentage of hospitalizations with a transfusion procedure were separately examined for each blood product using log binomial regression and reported as quarterly percent change (QPC). The percentage of hospitalizations with a RBC transfusion decreased from 4.22% (2015Q4) to 3.79% (2018Q4) (QPC=-0.72[95%CI=-1.26,-0.19];Ptrend=0.008). While plasma transfusions also decreased QPC=-1.33(95%CI=-2.00,-0.65;Ptrend