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Bloodless Care Program

What Is Bloodless Medicine?

The Temple Bloodless Care program is for patients who cannot receive blood transfusions due to their religious beliefs or personal preferences. The program offers high-quality medical and surgical treatments without using blood or blood products. Temple’s medical team is highly experienced in the most advanced bloodless surgery and treatments available today, and the program uses therapies and procedures recognized as best practices while preserving a patient’s dignity and legal rights.

Bloodless Medicine Techniques

Temple offers the most advanced bloodless care techniques for both surgical and medical procedures, including:

  • Blood salvaging

  • Hemodilution

  • Interventional radiology

  • Laparoscopic surgery

  • Minimally invasive surgery

  • Pre-operative stimulation of bone marrow

  • Volume expanders

Blood-Sparing Surgical Equipment

Temple’s Bloodless Care program uses several sophisticated technologies to provide patients with safe and effective surgery without the need for blood transfusions. These blood-sparing tools have made bloodless surgery much easier to perform and have greatly reduced the rate of transfusions in many different surgical settings.

The exact technology used by Temple’s surgeons will depend on the procedure they are performing. Temple currently offers the following blood-sparing surgical tools:

Laparoscopic Surgery

The laparoscope allows abdominal surgery to be performed through a series of tiny incisions. Temple’s surgeons insert a fiber optic scope into the patient's body through a small hole, enabling them to visualize internal organs with highly magnified cameras. Surgery is then performed through keyhole-sized incision using miniaturized instruments. This type of minimally invasive surgery has the potential to almost eliminate blood loss and reduce recovery times.

Robotic Surgery

The da Vinci® Surgical System robot offers an enhanced version of laparoscopic surgery. The surgeon sits at a console a few feet from the patient. Using miniaturized instruments while visualizing the surgical field with three-dimensional vision, the surgeon can perform complex procedures while avoiding most blood loss that would occur during traditional procedures.

Cell Saver

The cell saver is a machine that cleanses the patient's lost blood cells and returns them to the body through an intravenous line. The blood flows through a circuit that washes out debris and other unwanted blood components before concentrating the red blood cells and returning them to the patient.

Heart-Lung Machine

The heart-lung machine is used during heart surgery. Because the patient's heart beat must be suspended, the heart-lung machine acts as a temporary heart while surgery is performed. All of the patient's blood is diverted through the machine where tubing oxygenates the blood and removes waste. The blood is then pumped back into the patient's circulatory system.

Electric Cautery

The electric cautery device uses electricity-generated heat to cut and seal tissues, including blood vessels, during a surgical procedure. The device can make precise cuts while limiting blood loss.

Laser

A laser uses beams of light to cut through and seal tissues. Because the laser fully seals the blood vessels, potential blood loss is greatly reduced.

CO2 Laser

A CO2 laser uses carbon dioxide beams to cut through and seal tissue. As with a traditional laser, blood loss is reduced.

Our Locations

The locations listed below are physician practices on Temple Health campuses. For a full list of providers, go to our Find a Doctor search.

Temple University Hospital – Main Campus

3401 N. Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19140
800-TEMPLE-MED

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