Research Article Process Improvement by Eliminating Mixing of Whole Blood Units after an Overnight Hold Prior to Component Production Using the Buffy Coat Method

Copyright © 2013 Cherie Mastronardi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The elimination of a thorough manual mixing of whole blood (WB) which takes place following the overnight hold, but before the first centrifugation step, during buffy coat component production at Canadian Blood Services (CBS) was investigated. WB was pooled after donation and split. Pairs of platelet, red blood cell (RBC), and plasma components were produced, with half using the standardmethod and half using amethod in which themixing step was eliminated. Quality assessments included yield, pH, CD62P expression andmorphology for platelets, hemoglobin, hematocrit, hemolysis, and supernatant K+ for RBCs, and volume and factor VIII activity levels for plasma. All components, produced using either method, met CBS quality control criteria. There were no significant differences in platelet yield between components produced with and without mixing. A significant difference was see