Vox Sanguinis (2014) 106, 38–44 ORIGINAL PAPER © 2013 International Society of Blood Transfusion DOI: 10.1111/vox.12072 Quality assessment of buffy-coat-derived leucodepleted platelet concentrates in PAS-plasma, prepared by the OrbiSac or TACSI automated system E. M. Plaza, 1 P. C espedes, 1 H. Fern andez, 1 M. I. S anchez-Guiu, 1 J. M. Egea, 2 V. Vicente, 1 M. L. Lozano 1 & J. Rivera 1 1 Centro Regional de Hemodonaci on, Servicio de Hematología y OncologíaM edica, Hospital Universitario Morales Meseguer Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain 2 Servicio de Bioquímica, Hospital Universitario Morales Meseguer Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain Received: 8 May 2013, revised 26 June 2013, accepted 29 June 2013, published online 28 July 2013 Background and Objectives Buffy-coat (BC)-derived platelet concentrates (PCs) are the predominant product for platelet transfusion in many countries. Two automated systems, OrbiSac and TACSI, have been introduced in blood centres to prepare these PCs, as an alternative to the manual method. We compared the in vitro quality of PCs prepared by both methods during standard storage. Study Design and Methods Twenty primary BC pools were split into two parts, which were processed with OrbiSac and TACSI system to obtain OrbiSac PCs (O-PCs) and TACSI PCs (T-PCs), respectively. On days 1, 5 and 7 of standard storage, samples were taken and the following analysed: cell count, metabolic variables, platelet function and content of activation and proinflammatory substances. Results Both the OrbiSac and TACSI systems produced PCs that meet the stan- dards for platelet products in terms of platelet and leucocyte content. In vitro evaluation pointed to the similar preservation of platelet metabolism (pH, glu- cose, bicarbonate and lactate) in O-PCs and T-PCs. Moreover, there were no sig- nificant differences between O-PCs and T-PCs as regards the hypotonic shock response or in the platelet aggregation profile. The OrbiSac system caused greater platelet activation, which resulted in higher concentrations of sCD62P, RANTES and sCD40L on the day the PCs were prepared. Conclusion The systems OrbiSac and TACSI can be used to produce buffy-coat- derived PCs whose cell content, platelet function and metabolism are similar dur- ing standard storage. However, the preparation with the OrbiSac system induces a transient increase in platelet activation and release of proinflammatory sub- stances. Key words: ORBISAC, platelet concentrates, RANTES, sCD62P, sCL40L, TACSI. Introduction The transfusion of platelet concentrates (PCs) is an essen- tial tool in modern medicine, allowing surgery, aggressive chemotherapy schemes and the clinical management of patients with particular bleeding disorders [1]. These blood products may be selectively obtained from donors by plateletpheresis or prepared from whole blood dona- tions [2, 3]. The use of each of these two products varies between countries and individual institutions, with an approximately 50:50 ratio in Europe. In most developed countries, except USA, the classical platelet-rich-plasma (PRP) method has been substituted by the buffy-coat (BC) procedure as the routine form to prepare whole blood- derived PCs [2]. While PCs prepared by the BC and the Correspondence: Jose Rivera Pozo, Universidad de Murcia, Centro Regional de Hemodonaci on; Ronda de Garay, s/n; 30003-Murcia, Spain E-mail: jose.rivera@carm.es MLL and JR contributed equally. 38