Improving the quality of blood products

Thesis defense Ido Bontekoe

On 12 June 2019 (13:00) Ido Bontekoe will defend his PhD thesis 'Optimization of blood component preparation: Processing and donor influence'. To improve the quality of blood products several processing steps were studied and optimized.

A new method for preparation of red cells, that has the potential to reduce donor exposure for fetuses in need of (IUT) was developed. Because IUT of fetuses for treatment of hemolytic anemia is associated with additional antibody formation, red cells with the closest match between donor and mother are preferred. Finding such red cells from inventory is complicated and, moreover, a fetus needs a median of 3 IUTs.

Collection of repeated low volume donations of 100 or 200 mL whole blood from one selected donor during the entire IUT treatment period would reduce donor exposition and possibly IUT-associated allo-immunization.

Better storage performance

Furthermore, it was demonstrated in an older donor group that, apart from technical features, platelet storage performance is partly donor dependent. Donors with expected good or poor-storing platelets were selected. Acidification by lactate production in ‘good’ (apheresis) platelet concentrates (PCs) was lower than in ‘poor’ PCs and at the end of storage, the ‘good’ PCs were less activated, showed less signs of apoptosis, and had a higher mitochondrial membrane potential.

Nonetheless, also the ‘poor’ PCs fulfilled European Guidelines during 7 day storage, thanks to the optimized storage conditions. Among (buffy coat-derived) PCs obtained from young donors or older donors with and without Type 2 diabetes, PCs from young donors showed less acidification than PCs from older donors and better in vitro quality.

On average, platelets from older donors showed poorer in vitro quality but, considering the storage conditions used in this study, the implications for the daily blood bank routine is probably small. Recently, the Dutch blood bank switched to PAS-E as universal storage medium for platelets, which was not only a step forward in standardization, but may also mitigate effects of poor-storing platelets.

Promotor: Prof AJ Verhoeven PhD
Copromotor: D de Korte PhD and PF van der Meer PhD
Venue: Aula, University of Amsterdam