Intraoperative blood loss as indicated by haemoglobin trend is a predictor for the development of postoperative spinal implant infection-a matched-pair analysis.

We therefore show that the intraoperative Hb-trend is a predictor for the development of PSII independent of the amount of blood transfusions, operation time, number of spinal levels operated on and hospital length of stay, which is why strategies to reduce intraoperative blood loss in spine surgery need to be further studied.