Letter to the editor: What's in a name?

Abstract

community that has led to a sometimes destructive polarization between those of us engaged in the development of alternative oxygen transport formulations and those working on a daily basis to implement and improve the current practice of transfusion. The reality is that even if alternative oxygen carriers meet our wildest expectations, there will be a need for traditional blood product collection, distribution, and administration for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, having alternatives with different risk/benefi t profi les than red cells, as well as logistical and/or immunologic advantages, will undoubtedly improve the practice of medicine. Having only one modality to treat the enormous range of hypoxic and ischemic challenges facing patients is analogous to having only one antibiotic to treat all infections, or one chemotherapeutic to treat all cancers. Rather than defensive argumentation, a more constructive approach would be the establishment of a forthright and constructive dialogue about the limitations and advantages of both current blood transfusion practices and alternative oxygen carriers to establish the most effi cient and co-operative way forward to the improvement of patient care. This will require a number of outreach steps between those in the traditional blood transfusion community and those attempting to develop alternatives. One small, but not insignifi cant, step in this direction would be replacement of the label “ blood substitutes ” with a more accurate and less provocative terminology.