Effects of plateletpheresis on blood coagulation parameters

abstract Plateletpheresis is a method used to remove platelet from the body either from randomvolunteer donors, patient’s family members or HLA matched donors. A cross sectionalstudy was carried out on 59 plateletpheresis donors aged between 18 and 55 years atNational Blood Center (NBC), Kuala Lumpur. We compared the blood parameters beforeand after plateletpheresis and we found that the platelet count, FVIII, fibrinogen andthrombophilia markers anti-thrombin (AT), protein C and protein S were significantlyreduced (p < 0.05) with prolonged PT and APTT. There were significant changes in bloodcoagulation parameters but it is within acceptable range. 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. IntroductionPlatelet can be prepared or collected from whole bloodafter several stages of processing or through the apheresis(plateletpheresis) using cell separators. Apheresis is a tech-nique performed on donors or patients where by a partic-ular component of the blood is separated ex vivo and theremainder of the blood is returned to the donor or patients[1]. This technology is based on either filtration or centrif-ugal systems with combination of either continuous- orintermittent-flow technology [2]. The American Associa-tion of Blood Banking defined plateletpheresis as a methodused to remove platelet from the body either from randomvolunteer donors, patient’s family members or HLAmatched donor [3]. This technique is usually used fordonation and therapeutic purposes.Rate of complications of apheresis varies from 0.89% to4.8% [4,5]. It has been reported that apheresis procedureshad common complications related to vascular accessessuch as haematoma, venous infiltration and venous sclero-sis or thrombosis [6]. Fatalities due to complications inapheresis are approximately 0.003–0.02% or less than 1every 10,000 procedures. Among the potential causes offatalities includes cardiac arythmia, adult respiratory dis-tress syndrome, venous thrombosis and haemorrhagicevents [7,8]. A study on 195.372 donor apheresis proce-dures reported 9.6% cases developed complications ofwhich included 5.2% donor related problems, 4% machineand harness problems and 0.4% due to operator errors[9]. American Red Cross also reported that in 2006, from449, 594 plateletpheresis performed about 1/10.000 maydevelop minor and major adverse reaction.