A new section on blood conservation: liberalizing TRANSFUSION

Although the journal TRANSFUSION tries to remain apolitical, I hope that readers of all political persuasions will join me in welcoming the addition of a new section on blood conservation to the journal. This development is in keeping with the journal's vision to provide coverage of all subject areas encompassing the growing field of transfusion medicine, thus liberalizing our coverage. As our field broadens beyond its traditional base of blood banking, the editors hope to maintain TRANSFUSION as the first choice for readers and authors in evolving areas. There is no question that TRANSFUSION is preeminent in its coverage of the narrowly defined issues of blood banking. Our sections on transfusion-related immunohematology and donor infectious disease testing are the first choice for most authors and readers in this discipline and our impact in the medical literature is significant in these arenas. In the past years, the journal has expanded its coverage of newly emerging topics that are important developments in transfusion medicine such as HSC harvesting and transplantation. We are therefore responding to our readers, most notably the membership of the Society for the Advancement of Blood Management (SABM), in expanding our coverage to encourage authors of manuscripts on blood conservation and other transfusion alternatives to use TRANSFUSION as their publishing venue. We believe that an important clinical aspect of transfusion medicine is the judicious use of blood components and avoiding the use of blood from volunteer donors when other therapeutically effective options exist should be standard practice. This initiative is not really new, for the journal has covered these topics in previous issues. There have been comprehensive reviews of bloodless medicine1 and blood substitutes2 recently in these pages, and much of the development of autologous blood options has appeared in TRANSFUSION. A symposium on blood conservation will be published as a supplement in the next year. Our editorial board has been enriched with experts who will help us to maintain our high standards in these evolving areas. We are particularly hopeful that investigators who work in other primary areas (anesthesia, medical specialties, surgery, and others), but have an interest in blood conservation techniques, will use TRANSFUSION for their publications and their continuing education. As an indication of our commitment, the current issue features an excellent article on acute normovolemic hemodilution (ANH) by Segal and colleagues.3 The article is a meta-analysis of previous studies of ANH that should provide a blueprint for future investigations in blood conservation. Although much of the literature on ANH and other areas in blood conservation has been observational and too frequently anecdotal, we hope to publish other similar articles that will bring the rigorous discipline of evidence-based medicine to blood conservation. We have no intention of liberalizing our acceptance criteria for the journal in this effort to expand our coverage on blood conservation and will continue our conservative policies of only accepting those manuscripts that meet our requirements.