Blood spillage during salvage.

Recovery of blood components by salvage was evaluated in a randomized laboratory investigation using donor whole blood. Three methods of salvage were studied: conventional red cell salvage, red cell salvage with continuous processing, and salvage by haemofiltration using recirculation through a 30 000-Da filter. Less than 10% of the haemoglobin was wasted during processing by all three methods. About half of the leukocytes were recovered with no significant difference between the techniques. The recovery of platelets was 15, 4 and 41% during salvage with conventional red cell centrifugation, continuous centrifugation processing and haemofiltration, respectively. In contrast with the other methods, haemofiltration gave a major recovery of albumin.