Evaluation of platelets collected by a new portable apheresis device

We studied the efficiency of platelet collection by the Mobile Collection System (MCS) using two types of experimental protocols and evaluated the effect of storage at 22°C on the platelet concentrates (PC). MCS is a new blood cell separator that combines discontinuous flow features with a new computerized operating system and can be used to harvest either full units of apheresis PC (SDP _protocol) or half units of PC together with one to two units of plasma (PLP _protocol). On the average, 1.98 × 10¹¹ ± 0.46 × 10¹¹ (mean ± SD) platelets were obtained by the PLP protocol and 3.01 × 10¹¹ ± 0.70 × 10¹¹ and 4.2 × 10¹¹ ± 1.12 × 10¹¹ by the early and later versions of the SDP protocols, respectively. The mean number of WBC per PC ranged from 3.3 to 4.7 × 10⁸. During the storage period pH stayed above 7.0. On the average, the production of one molecule of lactate corresponded to the consumption of 0.538 molecules of glucose, indicating that less than 8% of glucose was consumed by the oxidative pathway. There were only small increases in LDH and B thromboglobulin concentrations. Furthermore, the ability of platelets to recover from osmotic shock and to aggregate following exposure to dual agonists declined only slightly during storage, indicating that both viability and function of platelets collected by the MCS were preserved during storage. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.