Transfusion can be necessary in certain critical situations however like any other medical treatment it can be associated to adverse side effects like transfusion related acute injury and transfusion associated circulatory overload.

Transfusion has been found to be a factor of mortality and morbidity in critical ill and surgical adult and paediatric patients. It has been evidenced in adult patients that when point of care methods or viscoelastic haemostatic assays were used to guide transfusion in haemorrhagic surgery,outcome in terms of mortality and morbidity was reduced.

In children studies have shown that when viscoelastic haemostatic assays  were applied to guide blood product administration in haemorrhagic surgery, transfusion with red blood cells was diminished but it has not been demonstrated that outcome was improved.

This study was undertaken to analyse the impact of viscoelastic haemostatic assays on outcome in the paediatric surgical population.