The Irish Medicines Board is to begin an immediate review of a treatment given to critically ill people after new research showed that using albumin for severe burns and shock could increase the risk of death.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, found the risk of death among critically ill patients who were treated with albumin was 6 per cent higher than it was for patients not given the protein.
The risk was highest for burns patients. There was no evidence that using albumin reduced death rates among the critically ill.
However, the authors said the results should be treated with caution because the number of trials, involving 1,419 patients, was relatively small, even though they involved a representative range of patients.
Yesterday the medical director of the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB), Dr William Murphy, said the use of albumin should now be reviewed and studied in more detail.
In a statement, the Irish Medicines Board said it was "currently seeking full background information and will undertake a detailed review of this data, in association with its experts, the BTSB and its European colleagues".
Any changes that might arise as a result of the review will be notified to doctors.
The British researchers said the use of human albumin for treating critically ill patients should be urgently reviewed. In Britain it is given to an estimated 100,000 people a year.
According to Dr Murphy about 10,000 Irish patients receive it each year. The researchers estimated there was one death for every 17 patients given the protein.
It is not clear why albumin might increase mortality. It was believed to have anti-coagulant properties which could be detrimental in critically ill patients. Another possibility is that it increases the likelihood of oedema, the abnormal accumulation of fluid in the body tissues.
Dr Murphy said that since the review was based on the pooling of data from 30 trials the results must be interpreted with caution as different conditions existed for each.