Cellular contamination of plasma collected with various apheresis systems

Efforts to improve the purity of blood products have mainly focused on redu cing white blood cell (WBC) levels in cellular blood products. Relatively l ittle attention has been given to the cellular purity of plasma. We evaluat ed plasma units collected on six apheresis systems: Dideco-Excel, Haemoneti cs-MCS+, Fresenius-AS-Tech 204, Baxter-Amicus, Gambro BCT-COBE Spectra and Gambro BCT-Trima. Collected plasma volumes averaged 300-350 ml for the vari ous systems. Plasma samples were analyzed for platelet (PLT) content (Techn icon H3, Payer) and residual WBC (Imagn 2000). Results are given below. Pla telet levels were consistently low for MCS+, COBE Spectra and Trima tall < 50 x 10(3) mul(-1)), and were highest with AS204. Residual WBC levels were relatively low in all systems except MCS+. Extremely low levels were observ ed in Trima plasma. All of the Trima and Spectra units contained <1 x 10(6) WBC per product. With Excel. AS-Tech 204 and Amicus, 1 to 2 units were fou nd to have >1 x 10(6) WBC, while almost all units from MCS+ exceeded this l imit. Different levels of plasma purity were obtained with different aphere sis systems. The Gambro BCT-COBE Spectra (TM) and Trima (TM) systems were f ound to achieve consistently low levels of both platelets and WBC. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.