P/N 53063-30, Manual revision: B
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Presenting the Cell Saver 5+ System
Naturally, doctors returning from the war continued to rely on donor blood,
although several factors were developing which would make this less and
less practical. The Korean and Vietnam wars which followed World War II
placed the usual high demands on the donor pool. Concurrently, other large
demands were being placed on the donor pools by the development and
refinement of sophisticated surgical procedures such as open heart surgery.
The shortages of donor blood during the Vietnam War revived interest in
autotransfusion. In Vietnam, an American military surgeon named Klebanoff
began using the open heart pump to capture, anticoagulate, filter, and rein-
fuse the blood lost in surgery
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Klebanoff’s device was introduced commercially in the 1970’s by Bentley
Laboratories. The device was effective though unsophisticated, as blood was
simply anticoagulated, filtered, and reinfused. The Bentley device was the
first attempt to modernize autologous blood recovery in decades.
Haemonetics Cell Saver systems
Haemonetics Cell Saver systems are aptly named since the primary purpose
is the recovery of red blood cells (RBCs). The RBCs are recovered shed
blood which in the past was simply discarded after an operation. Cell Saver
systems trap and wash the RBCs, removing unwanted components, then
pack the RBCs and return them to a transfer container for reinfusion.
The first Haemonetics Cell Saver system was released in 1975. With each
generation of the Cell Saver systems, Haemonetics has improved perfor-
mance and increased automation. Haemonetics offers a variety of Cell Saver
systems to be used for a wide range of surgical procedures.