Blood salvage, proper choice for tumor patients?

Blood transfusion is frequently used in tumor patients, However, allogeneic blood transfusion have been claimed to be associated with an increased risk of negative outcomes, including transfusion reactions, fever, virus transmission, and alloimmunization. Other risks of homologous transfusion specific to the tumor patients are the potential deleterious effects on the recurrence of tumor and indefinite overall survival. On the contrary, autologous blood transfusion offers survival advantages to tumor patients and has been shown to minimize the occurrence of many detrimental allogeneic blood associated effects and complications. It also reduces the volume of banked blood needed and improves the prognosis of patients. However, the quality of salvaged blood is still a matter of debate, because it may contain tumor cells which are associated with potential detrimental effects such as metastasis. So, an advanced technology is needed to remove such contaminants to make autologous blood transfusion safer.