Effect of age on restrictive and liberal transfusion outcomes in patients with anemia and myocardial infarction.

For patients with anemia and myocardial infarction (MI), the randomized, 3,504-patient MINT trial found that a liberal transfusion threshold (10 g/dL) may be preferable to a restrictive threshold (8 g/dL) in terms of death or MI. The relative effects of liberal versus restrictive transfusion in younger and older patients are unknown. The present prespecified MINT substudy found no significant interaction between age and transfusion strategy for death or MI, heart failure, revascularization procedures, cardiac death, pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis, bacteremia or pneumonia, and death at 30 and 180 days. A liberal transfusion approach appears to be safe and may be the preferred transfusion strategy in anemic patients with MI, regardless of age. MINT Trial, ClinicalTrials.gov Number NCT02981407, https://www.minttrial.org/.