Can anyone tell me what kind of plastic tubes are best to use for Blood Bank? 

Are they optically clear enough to read under a microscope (still in the tube - not transferred to a slide)?

If you changed from glass to plastic - that would require validation , right?  Extensive validation or minimal?

Any help would be much appreciated.  We just tried a general purpose plastic tube from Fisher Scientific, but couldn't see very well when we put the tube under the scope. 

 

Am I being obtuse? What are you using the scope for?

30 yrs ago, we used plastic tubes at Dana Farber.  They are not as clear as glass, but maybe have improved in the recent years!  

One big problem was static - labs are typically very dry and when you used a pipet to drop spec/reagents into the plastic tube, the drop would "jump" out and not go in.  We had to wipe the tops of the tubes with saline dampened gauze to get things into the tubes.

Hard plastic tubes would still be considered "sharps" and need to disposed just like glass.

If there's a choice, I'd advise sticking with glass.

 

We tried using plastic as well and had problems with static.  We stuck with glass as well. 

s

19 hours ago, goodchild said:

Am I being obtuse? What are you using the scope for?

To observe rouleaux or tube IAT, maybe? 

s

We also use glass tubes in blood bank.

Stay with glass if you can.  The static issue with plastic not only makes if difficult to get the drop in the tube but it also affects the size of the drop which is generally smaller than you will be used to with glass but also very inconsistent.  

Thanks for the help everyone - I think we are going to stick with glass, but Fisher Sci is having shipping problems in this area (USA Southwest) and we are getting a lot of broken tubes.  I was having to explore the plastic tube option again.....sigh.

Yes, we read several things under the scope with "tube rolling" - probably always will.  It is very difficult to correlate an antibody found on Solid Phase with any of the tube enhancement medias , including PEG, so sometimes you need help.  Also DATs (looking for mixed field) and Fetal HGB stains need the scope too.

As for the static issue - maybe this will help others -  we purchased a Static Master Ionmaster 4060R years ago that helped tremendously.  With the gloves, the synthetic coats, vinyl chairs and the dry southwest air - you can imagine what our problems were.  The StaicMasters Ionmaster comes from NRD, INC http://www.nrdstaticcontrol.com/  - look at the 4065 or 4067 now.  They are a little expensive to start and require a yearly recharge of ionizing strips (check prices so you don't get surprised), but when they are turned on and blowing over the bench - forget about static.  They may recommend something else by now for bench applications.  If our little fans ever quit, I will ask about something different from them.

Thanks again.  I love this site.