Introduction:
It is estimated that more than 2 million young women currently live with
untreated obstetric fistulas in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. There are
about 50,000 to 100,000 new cases per year, and approximately 150,000
women in Uganda alone are currently living with this
condition.1–3 Although surgical fistula repairs are
commonly preformed and relatively safe, some of the complications
include bowel obstruction, fistula recurrence, and urinary
incontinence.4,5. A rare complication of fistula
surgery is hemorrhaging, accounting for 3% of all
complications.6 However, this can be serious and
life-threating as access to safe blood for women in low-resource
settings can be challenging. Therefore, it is important to understand
potential risk factors for perioperative transfusions to allow for
proper planning and risk mitigation among high-risk women. There is
currently a paucity of information in the literature on this topic.
Therefore, we aim to identify the incidence of and risk factors for
perioperative blood transfusions after urogenital fistula repair at a
Fistula Hospital in Uganda. We hypothesize there will be specific
patient characteristics that will increase risk of perioperative
transfusions such as location of fistula and route of surgery.