Systematic reviews on platelet transfusions: a scoping review and interactive evidence maps

13/12/22

Platelet transfusions are used across multiple patient populations to prevent and correct bleeding. Increased demand for platelet components is mainly due to an ageing population and the increased incidence and change in the management of hematological malignancies.
Several methods for preparing platelets, platelet dosing, platelet transfusion threshold and platelet product specifications have been investigated in studies. This scoping review aimed to map the currently available systematic reviews and evidence-based guidelines in the field of platelet transfusion.

After a systematic literature search in seven databases, we identified 110 systematic reviews. The majority focused on clinical effectiveness, including prophylactic or therapeutic transfusions compared to no platelet transfusion (34 systematic reviews), prophylactic compared to therapeutic-only transfusion (8 systematic reviews), dose, timing (11 systematic reviews) and threshold for platelet transfusion (15 systematic reviews) and the ratio of platelet transfusion to other blood products in massive transfusion (14 systematic reviews).
Furthermore, we included 34 systematic reviews on decision support, of which 26 evaluated viscoelastic testing.
Finally, we identified 22 systematic reviews on platelet production modalities, including derivation (4 systematic reviews), pathogen inactivation (6 systematic reviews), leucodepletion (4 systematic reviews) and ABO/human leucocyte antigen matching (5 systematic reviews).
The systematic reviews were categorized in interactive maps according to concept and clinical context. This work serves clinicians, researchers and guideline developers in search of a quick and clear overview of the state-of-the-art themes related to platelet transfusion, from clinical effectiveness to production modalities and decision support.

The scoping review (including links to the interactive maps) is published in Vox Sanguinis and can be found here.