One more 5 day plasma question.

[John C. Staley]

One more question has come up in our attempt to institute the use of Thawed Plasma with a 5 day outdate. What is your criteria for either accepting for continued storage and reissue or the discard of plasma that has been sent out to the floor and returned? Currently we are pretty loose with our criteria for FFP since it is discarded after 24 hours anyway. We felt that we should tighten the criteria if we are going to be keeping it for up to 5 days. Any suggestions?

Thanks

John

[Cliff]

Here is what we have in our SOP for returning products:

a. Red cell products must be returned to the Blood Bank within 30 minutes or they must be returned in a cooler with an acceptable temperature indicator.

b. Thawed fresh frozen plasma is acceptable for reissue if returned within 30 minutes or it must be returned in a cooler with an acceptable temperature indicator. Thawed fresh frozen plasma returned after 30 minutes of issue must have their expiration time changed to 6 hours from the time thawed.

c. Platelets must be returned within one hour.

d. Cryoprecipitate and Granulocytes are acceptable upon return until expiration.

[Tekk56]

Here is what we have in our SOP for returning products:

a. Red cell products must be returned to the Blood Bank within 30 minutes or they must be returned in a cooler with an acceptable temperature indicator.

b. Thawed fresh frozen plasma is acceptable for reissue if returned within 30 minutes or it must be returned in a cooler with an acceptable temperature indicator. Thawed fresh frozen plasma returned after 30 minutes of issue must have their expiration time changed to 6 hours from the time thawed.

c. Platelets must be returned within one hour.

d. Cryoprecipitate and Granulocytes are acceptable upon return until expiration.

I am curious as to what literature/standard or research study the 1 hr Plt. expiration and the 6 hr. post thaw is referenced to in your policy. Also, the 30 minute rule has to have supporting studies (I've not encountered anyone who can trace back the original research for this old rule) available. When I performed an inhouse study of 20 red cell units, I found that in many patient units such as Oncology and Geriatric areas, the measured internal temperature was unacceptable ( greater than 10 C ) in as little as 12-15 minutes.

[donellda]

I was interested in where the fresh frozen plasma returned after 30 minutes expiration of 6 hours came from too. This is something that we could use. Where did you get the reference from?