Consensus Panel Algorithm for Blood Transfusions in Pediatric Trauma

In the course of designing a trial to test tranexamic acid in children with severe trauma, the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) needed to create standardized transfusion practices for pediatric trauma patients at their participating sites. These authors used a Delphi method (serial rounds of discussion, anonymous commenting, and independent voting) to evaluate the level of agreement with 176 statements, and then integrated statements with agreement into a standardized transfusion algorithm. Thirty-five Delphi participants were recruited from four tertiary pediatric referral centers, and included pediatric experts in surgery, emergency medicine, critical care, anesthesia, and transfusion medicine.

The final algorithm…