Prophylactic transfusion for pregnant women with sickle cell disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis, Malinowski AK, Shehata N, D'Souza R, et al.,

Blood. 2015 Aug 24.

This very recent meta-analysis of 12 studies and 1291 participants has been published in Blood and demonstrated that prophylactic transfusion in pregnant woman with sickle cell disease was associated with a reduction in maternal mortality, vaso-occlusive pain episodes, pulmonary complications, pulmonary embolism, pyelonephritis, perinatal mortality, neonatal death and preterm birth compared to on-demand transfusion policy. This meta-analyses is important since there is limited concrete data in this field, however the authors still emphasize the sample size as being one of the limitations and suggest prospective studies in larger sample sizes.