Abstract

With the advance of medical sciences, blood transfusion has transformed into blood component therapy. Human blood can be separated into its components, ie, red cells, white cells, platelets, and plasma; each serves its own function in the body. Minimizing risk of transmitting blood-borne disease has driven blood transfusion toward maximizing the yield of a specific blood component from a specific blood donor. The blood component collected depends on need. Plasma is collected primarily for the procurement of coagulation factors, red cells are transfused in order to increase the oxygen carrying capacity of a patient, and platelets are applied to secure coagulation of the blood.

Based on biological and physical differences between the blood components, technologies have been developed to separate blood from a blood donor or patient, collect those components needed for transfusion, and return the other components to the donor.

Many cell separation methods are based on the formation of layers by mass density gradient using centrifugal separation chambers, eg, countercurrent separation and elutriation. The Beckman elutriation chamber and Haemonetics bowl technology are two such methods. Filtration technologies using advanced biomaterials are applied in the removal of leukocytes from red blood cell and platelet concentrates.