Bloodless Surgery

Bloodless surgery is a phrase that was popularized at the beginning of the 20th century by the practice of an internationally famous orthopedic surgeon, Adolf Lorenz, who was known as "the bloodless surgeon of Vienna". This expression reflected Lorenz's methods for treating patients with noninvasive techniques. His medical practice was a consequence of his severe allergy to carbolic acid routinely used in operating rooms of the era. His condition forced him to become a "dry surgeon".

Contemporary usage of bloodless surgery refers to both invasive and noninvasive medical techniques and protocols. The phrase is somewhat confusing. The expression does not mean "surgery that makes no use of blood or blood transfusion". Rather, it refers to surgery performed without transfusion of allogeneic blood. Champions of bloodless surgery do, however, transfuse products made from allogeneic blood and they also make use of pre-donated blood for autologous transfusion. The last twenty years have witnessed a surge of interest in bloodless surgery, for a variety of reasons. Jehovah's Witnesses reject blood transfusions on religious grounds; others may be concerned about bloodborne diseases, such as hepatitis and AIDS.

During the early 1960s, American heart surgeon Denton Cooley successfully performed numerous bloodless open-heart surgeries on Jehovah's Witness patients. Fifteen years later, he and his associate published a report of more than 500 cardiac surgeries in this population, documenting that cardiac surgery could be safely performed without blood transfusion.

Ronald Lapin (1941–1995) was a maverick Israeli-born American surgeon, who became interested in bloodless surgery in the mid 1970s. Best known as a "bloodless surgeon" due to his willingness to perform surgeries on severely anemic Jehovah's Witness patients without the use of blood transfusions.