Longer storage duration of red blood cells is associated with an increased risk of acute lung injury in patients with sepsis

Annals of Intensive Care

Table 2 Median storage days and risk of ALI/ARDS in patients with sepsis

Characteristics	Odds ratio	95% CI	p value
Median storage days (28 vs. 18)	1.8	1.07-3.04	0.028
Unit of transfused blood (4 vs. 2)	0.93	0.57-1.52	0.765
Age (65 vs. 47 yr)	0.62	0.37-1.04	0.069
Baseline APACHE II score (33 vs. 23)	0.87	0.51-1.5	0.612
Current smoker (yes vs. no)	0.93	0.42-2.07	0.863

Odds ratio for median storage days is the odds of developing ALI/ARDS in the 96 hours after transfusion for the patients receiving RBCs in the 75^th compared with 25^th percentile of storage duration.