【Abstract】Background:Blood transfusion was gradually changed from liberal to restrictive, from empirical to scientific. Objective: This paper sums up literatures on the safety ,effectiveness and limitation in clinical application of restrictive transfusion. Content: the comparisons between restrictive transfusion and liberal transfusion; safety of restrictive transfusion;transfusion triggers;indications and limitations. Trend: restrictive transfusion was at least as effective as liberal transfusion and even better. To enhance the application there still needs systemic studies in different groups of crowd and in different surgeries.