How do I analyze the role of red blood cell transfusions on clinical outcome in anemic patients? Disentangling the effect of red blood cell transfusions from pre‐operative anemia on post‐operative outcome

Mediation is assessed in a similar way as confounding, but the interpretation of the results is totally different. It is, therefore, of critical importance to distinguish between potential mediators and potential confounders in transfusion research. Since the calculation reported in the results is merely used as an example to show the methodology, e.g. ignoring confounding, the result should not be interpreted as scientific research data.