Double Dose Plateletpheresis: A Savior to Shrinking Donor Pool and Platelet Inventory Management

The double dose plateletpheresis (DDP) is considered to be a cost effective way of preparing platelets, owing to the low incidence of infectious complications and by also minimizing allogeneic donor exposure to the patients. We aimed at collecting DDP at our center and study its effect on donor hematological parameters, evaluate the product quality and the adverse donor reactions thereafter. Double Dose Platelet was collected from 160 eligible apheresis donors on Amicus cell separator (Fenwal, Inc. Three Corporate Drive Lake Zurich, IL, USA). The donor hematological parameters, product yield, adverse effects on the donors, collection efficiency (CE) and collection rate of the machine were noted. A total of 160 DDPs were collected. The total blood volume processed to achieve the yield of 6.0 × 1011 was 3673.5 ± 276.56 mL. The average yield achieved was 6.14 ± 0.26 × 1011. The average run time was 68.05 ± 6.25 min. Total ACD used was 408.33 ± 33.81 mL. We observed significant relation of pre-donation donor platelet count and platelet yield (p < 0.001). The CE was 78.09 ± 5.15%. There was a significant drop in the post DDP platelet count (p < 0.01) causing no adverse effect. Fourteen donors (8.75%) experienced mild citrate related adverse events. DDP does not lead to major adverse effects and post DDP hematological parameters are also within the acceptable range. It also helps to maintain apheresis platelet inventory, reduce donor exposure, reduce donor requirement and reduce the cost of the product.