Recommendations for Plasma Thawers

[cgotwo01 0]

Hello,

We are a Level I Trauma Center and we rely heavily on our ancient Thermogenesis plasma thawers.  It is time to replace these devices, and I wonder if anyone can recommend models that they use and are happy with.

Thank you kindly in advance.

[MAGNUM 75]

I have a Helmer DH8, thaws 8 units in about 18 minutes.

[David Saikin 1,336]

I use the smaller (4u) Helmer product.  Works very well.

[cgotwo01 0]

Thank you both!  How often are you changing the water with the Helmer devices?  And what type of water do you use?  Thank you kindly in advance.

[David Saikin 1,336]

I can go for months without using plasma so I keep my bath empty until I have orders.

I fill it w tap water

[Cliff 397]

On 1/24/2020 at 10:08 AM, cgotwo01 said:

Thank you both!  How often are you changing the water with the Helmer devices?  And what type of water do you use?  Thank you kindly in advance.

I believe their instructions say to change the water and clean the unit weekly.

[cgotwo01 0]

Thank you!

[cswickard 205]

We have had a Helmer 4 well for years.  We ONLY use bottled water (distilled/deionized) and change the water every month (unless there is a messy spill).  We use the Helmer Cleanbath product (per instructions) after cleaning the unit and putting in the fresh bottled water.  We use the specific bags sold by Helmer for their machine - sort of expensive, but I do not see how anything else would work right.  Units thaw in 14-18 minutes and we recently used it to thaw 16 units for plasma exchange and were finished with the thawing within 1 hour.  Easy to maintain and keep operating - very stable.

[Ally 4]

we have Helmer DH8  8 bags capacity.  highly recommended.

[Baby Banker 65]

 We have two Helmer DH8 units.  We love them.  We are a level one trauma center and we have MTPs.  Our thawers have always been able to keep up.  In general, Helmer products are good.  

[AMcCord 1,207]

I have a Helmer DH4 that is quite elderly. It's been very reliable. Thaws quickly.

[KX36 0]

I just registered to post here to recommend you avoid KW Apparecchi Scientifici.

We inherited one with 3x2 pouches from another lab to replace our thermogenesis thawers and they just weren't fit for purpose. It took us 2-3 years to get them replaced (NHS moves slow and doesn't spend money).

They have a temperature probe that goes between the plasma bag and the pouch, the idea being that it shuts down when the bag gets to temperature. They also have 2 modes, plasma thawing and blood warming. In plasma thawing mode the pouch would fill and then it would detect the warm pouch and immediately shut down thinking it was finished. We had several engineers out to it and they all switched it to blood warming mode and said it was functioning normally. In blood warming mode it runs for a fixed time and ignores the temperature probe, which got the plasma thawed but took 45 minutes as in this mode the pouches repeatedly fill and empty.

Now we have little Barkey ones (I think we got those just because of a contract with LabCold.) They only do 4 units at a time but they thaw with 45'C or 37'C water. At 45'C you can do 1-4 bags in 14-20 mins (time increasing with number of bags).

I have heard from colleagues in other hospitals that thawers which don't use hot water at all but hot air are good, but I've not tried them.

Edited February 9 by KX36
Typo

[slsmith 44]

We have both the Helmer DH8 and DH4.  The DH4 is really a backup (but always in service) as sometimes on a long massive the DH8 decides to take a time out so we use the DH4 until DH8  is happy again. We drain and clean once a week per manufacturer's instruction. It is filled with DI-water which fortunately we have a tap on the sink the plasma thawer  sits next to.