For those who used or are currently using the Vision, did you extent the reagent red cell on-board expiration past the recommended 5 day stability? If so, can you share some tips for validation.

 

Thank you

 

Bman

We do not extend the expiration date but love to know if others find you can because we never use the entire bottle and it seems like a big waste of money.

we use ours too quickly - but we would not extend......they seem to have more ?? the longer they are on the machine - the more they are used.

I believe the antibiotics and antifungals start to degrade after 5 days onboard rather rapidly.  The excessive ? reactions are not worth the hassle.  

We don't use them up after 5 days but with the low humidity here the suspension is quite thick after 5 days even with the evap caps.  You can tell a difference in the cell button size from day 1 to day 5 but it must be minimal enough that the system doesn't flag it.  If someone forgets to change them, you're guaranteed to get TMC errors "too much cells."

i know this is late, but we are a small volume lab and we validated onboard stability up to 10 days (though we routinely change them every 7 days for ease of scheduling).

first thing, we are also in a low humidity area - the evap caps must be on there in such a way that the flaps/flanges are fully closed - too tight and they sort of stand up and open - a few days like that and you will definitely get TMC (too many cells) errors due to concentration.

also, note the verbiage used regarding the onboard stability of the cells - it doesn't say that it's 5 days, it says that it hasn't been validated beyond 5 days.

we simply ran QC side by side each day for 10 days with fresher cells. all went well - no QC issues, no "degradation" or visible issues. medical director approved the validation. done deal.