Single-donor platelet concentrates produced along with packed red blood cells with the haemonetics MCS 3p: Preliminary results

There has been an increasing interest in recent years over the qualitative superiority of single-donor platelets in the management of hemato-oncologic patients. The reasonable desire of both patients and physicians to limit the risks of transfusion along with the need for limiting the costs involved in this kind of therapy have led to application of multicomponent donations both in terms of double platelet concentrates and double products such as red blood cells (RBC) and platelets from the same donor. Single donor platelets and RBC have been collected in a semi-automated mode and only the very recent introduction of the Haemonetics MCS 3p with its SDP/RBC protocol provides a totally closed-system automated protocol for this combined collection. Twenty procedures have been carried out so far at our unit. In a mean of 87 minutes (6–7 passes), a mean of 3.1 × 10¹¹ platelets were collected along with ～220 mL of packed RBC. The leukocyte contamination of the platelet product was in the range of 0.4–1.1 × 10⁷ (99% lymphocytes), and the quality of platelets was very satisfactory as measured by the hypotonic shock response, aggregation induced by ADP, collagen and ristocetin, morphology score, and membrane glycoproteins modifications. Equally satisfactory was the quality of the RBC concentrate, suspended in 80 mL of SAG-M, with a total hemoglobin (Hb) content approaching 55 g as compared to the normal Hb content of a standard RBC concentrate that is approximately 62 g. No adverse effect has complicated the 20 procedures carried out so far, and the donors' evaluation of the procedure was favorable, except for the length of the procedure.