[Effect of erythrocyte contamination on thrombocyte storage]

The influence of red cells on the storage of platelet concentrates (PC) is still questionable. Therefore, we investigated 40 PCs with 4 different red cell concentrations (less than or equal to 5000, 10,000, 50,000 and 100,000/microliters), but equal leukocyte contamination, in a paired study during 5 day storage. In correlation to the red cell contamination, there was a significant reduction of platelets, discoids and especially "functional active" platelets already after addition of the red cells, which was due to a spontaneous platelet aggregation. The difference increased during the storage (p less than 0.05 and p less than 0.001). The other parameters investigated (pH, aggregation, adherence, beta-TG) showed the well-known storage alterations, but no special influence of the red cells. Therefore, PCs should contain the least red cell contamination for storage purposes.