Undiagnosed MI occurs in around a quarter of critically ill patients with co-existing CVD and is associated with lower long-term survival.

dependent predictor of hospital mortality, and correlates most highly with the APS component of APACHE II. It does not improve risk prediction.

Abstract This article is one of ten reviews selected from the Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine 2017.

Conclusions The results show that it may not be safe to use a restrictive transfusion threshold of less than 80 g/L in patients with ongoing acute coronary syndrome or chronic cardiovascular disease. Effects on mortality and other outcomes are uncertain. These data support the use of a more liberal transfusion threshold (>80 g/L) for patients with both acute and chronic cardiovascular disease until adequately powered high quality randomised trials have been undertaken in patients with cardiovascular disease.