ABSTRACT
Introduction: Platelets are routinely isolated from wholeblood and stored in plasma for 5 days. The platelets undergovarious storage changes starting from collection, processingto storage and the underlying conditions within the patientswhich may affect the therapeutic benefit to the recipient. Studyaimed to assess the quality of platelets in platelet rich plasmaand platelet concentrate and to evaluate the effects of storageon platelets in platelet rich plasma and platelet concentrate.Material and methods: The study was carried out in theDepartment of Transfusion Medicine and Department ofMedical Laboratory Technology in Government MedicalCollege, Thiruvananthapuram after obtaining approval fromthe Institutional Ethical Committee. The study period was sixmonths. The samples were collected from platelet rich plasmaand platelet concentrate bags under sterile conditions. Theirquality was assessed using the parameters such as swirling,volume of the platelet concentrate, platelet count, WBC countand pH on day 0, day 3 and day 5 of storage.Results: A total of 64 samples were evaluated and of these95% have fullfilled all 5 parameters of quality control with ascore 5 and 5% had score 4. Thus in our study majority of theprepared units were of the desired quality. All the parameterswere assessed and the results obtained on both the units werewell above the values of recommended norms.Conclusion: The quality of platelet concentrates weremaintained well within the usual 5 days thus an extension ofplatelet storage time is recommended.