A new blood collection device was developed, which consisted of a blood filter (Sepacell R-500) to remove leukocytes, a hollow-fiber module (BCC 400) to filtrate plasma from whole blood and two blood collection bags.
Eleven units of 400ml whole blood fleshly collected were investigated. They had mean volume 456 (SD 8)ml with mean heamatocrit value 41.6 (SD 1.8)%, which were passed through the devices in mean time 9′42″ (SD 2′35″) and were divided directly into mean volume 326 (SD 17)ml of concentrated red cells (CRC) with mean heamatocrit value 65.7 (SD 5.0)% and 149 (SD 10)ml of plasma.
In the CRC 95.6% of white blood cells and 98.8% of platelets were removed on average, while 81.0% of red blood cells were recovered. There were no significant differences between the pretreated whole blood and the treated CRC at the levels of ATP and 2, 3-DPG in red blood cells, osmotic fragility and the value of platelet factor 4, C3a and C5a in plasma. During 28 days storage, ATP, 2, 3-DPG, free hemoglobin and pH levels in the treated CRC showed the same changes as those in the CRC prepared with centrifugation as usual.
These results indicate that the leukocyte-depleted CRC passed through this device can be simply prepared in a closed system at donating blood, so that their shelf-life will have to be as long as that of conventional CRC.
