Perioperative bleeding remains a real challenge for physicians managing cardiac surgical patients. In patients at high risk for excessive bleeding the prophylactic use of antifibrinolytics may be useful. This study propose to compare the efficacity and innocuity of aprotinin and tranexamic acid to reduce the proportion of patient presenting severe peri-operative bleeding according the Universal Definition of Perioperative Bleeding (UDPB) classification.
In this before-after multicenter study the authors tested the hypothesis that the prophylactic use of aprotinin compared to tranexamic acid could reduce the proportion of patients presenting severe perioperative bleeding.