Qualitative Evaluation of Platelet Concentrates Prepared with Different Methods

Introduction: One of the most important responsibility of Blood Bank is to ensure uninterrupted supply of quality blood products, namely Platelet Concentrate (PC), which are in high demand particularly during pandemic. In India, PCs are of three types prepared by different methods like Platelet Rich Plasma-Platelet Concentrate (PRP-PC), Buffy Coat Platelet Concentrates (BC-PC), and Single Donor Platelets units (SDP). Hence, establishing optimum quality standards across all the three types of PC remains a challenge in order to maximum benefit to recipients. Aim: To assess and compare the quality parameters of platelet concentrate prepared by PRP, BC-PC and apheresis methods Materials and Methods: Laboratory based observational study done at rural, tertiary care, post graduate, teaching hospital located at south India from December 2018 to November 2019. A total of 156 PCs were studied with 52 units belonging to PRP method, 52units BC-PC method and the remaining were 52 units of SDP prepared by apheresis method. Quality parameters studied include volume, pH, swirling, White Blood Cell count (WBC count/bag), platelet count/bag and platelet indices. Platelet indices include Mean Platelet Volume (MPV), Platelet distribution width (PDW), and Platelet Large Cell Ratio (PLCR). Arterial Blood Gas (ABG) analysis was also done to assess (pH, pCO(2), pHCO(3-)). The p-value less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 23.0 used for statistical analysis. Results: All the 156 PC units were analysed as per the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) India, criteria. A score of 5 was obtained for 58 out of 156 cases for SDP, 56 out of 156 cases for BC-PC, 42 out of 156 cases for PRP-PC units with respective percentage of 37.1%, 33.3% and 26.9%, respectively. All the PC units were sterile and Red Blood Cell (RBC) contamination was within acceptable limits. Conclusion: In this study, quality parameters of SDP was better than BC-PC and PRP-PC but with improvement and more standardisation of procedures and storage, BC-PC units can give a yield similar to that of SDP units.