Implementation of concurrent red blood cell and platelet collection by apheresis in a university haemapheresis unit

The present study analyses the number of concurrently collected red blood cell (RBC) units in plateletpheresis donors and the reasons why donors were deferred from multicomponent collection. Donors undergoing concurrent collection of RBCs and platelets (PLTs) were retrospectively evaluated for haemoglobin values and the reasons for deferral over a period of 1 year. A total of 404 RBC units were concurrently collected with PLTs. An average of 1.8 RBC units per year was collected from each donor. The baseline haemoglobin values were almost equal for the RBC donations. An RBC unit was not collected in 190 aphereses. Most frequent reasons for the noncollection of an RBC product were a donation interval of less than 3 months (20.5%), haematoma and blood flow problems (18.9%) and low pre-haemoglobin values (17.4%). Donor eligibility has to be taken into account to optimize concurrent RBC collection in plateletpheresis.