What you may not know about voluntary blood donation | The gorgeous transformation of a bag of blood: plasma

The fate of each bag of plasma is determined when it is collected.

Blood donors who have passed the physical examination can participate in free blood donation. The blood collection nurse will communicate with you: Do you want to donate 400ml or 200ml? If you choose to donate 400ml, the collection process will be smooth. After about 7 minutes, you only need to go to the rest area to rest and wait to receive the blood donation certificate and souvenirs. Your blood donation journey will end perfectly.

As the lights come on, residents come to the blood donation vehicle to donate blood

The bag of blood you donated has just started its journey of destiny. It will be placed in a 4℃ blood storage refrigerator for refrigeration and transported back to the blood station component room for separation within 8 hours. The separated plasma will be placed in a quick-freezing refrigerator, frozen into a solid within 30 minutes and the core temperature will drop below -30℃. It will then be transported to the blood supply department's low-temperature refrigerator for storage and become fresh frozen plasma.

The moment of fate has come again. The test report from the laboratory department has come out. If the test fails, it will be destroyed. Only fresh frozen plasma that passes the test and looks good can be transported back to the component room to wait for a gorgeous transformation. Appearance qualified? We will talk about it in the next article.

These qualified plasmas will be placed in a machine called a cryoprecipitation preparation instrument, and melted little by little in a 0-4℃ water bath. The melted plasma will be collected in a sealed bag connected to it. Over time, white fibrous substances in the plasma will be precipitated, which are the cryoprecipitated coagulation factors and factor VIII. The melted plasma and the precipitated cryoprecipitated coagulation factors will be separated at this moment. The former will be sent to a 4℃ refrigerator, and the latter will be stored in a -20℃ refrigerator, waiting to be sent to the clinic.

So if you tell the nurse when donating blood that you want to donate 200 ml, then your plasma will not have the above experience and will be called ordinary frozen plasma. After passing the first separation, it can be sent to the clinic.

Does this mean that every 400ml bag of blood has the same fate? No. In another case, if platelets are to be extracted from blood, the blood can only be stored at 22-24℃, and most of the cold precipitated coagulation factors will be inactivated at this temperature, so it can only be used to make ordinary frozen plasma.

The biggest difference between fresh frozen plasma and ordinary viral plasma is the activity of coagulation factors.

Which patients need plasma transfusion? Burn patients, patients with acute blood loss, liver disease, and patients with diseases that require plasma exchange, such as poisoning, severe infection, autoimmune disease, severe endocrine disorder, and organ failure.

Every bag of blood you donate is hope for life.

(Han Xiaogai, deputy chief physician of Henan Red Cross Blood Center)