Monitoring of the Blood Plasma Redox Potential During Plasma Quarantining (Preliminary Report)

Abstract

The purpose of the study: to identify significant changes in the electrochemical properties of quarantine-stored blood plasma and of donor blood plasma during its in vitro mixing with quarantined plasma in order to assess the effect of transfusion of quarantine-stored plasma on recipient plasma in a model experiment. Materials and methods. Blood plasma of 20 clinically healthy volunteer donors was quarantined for 6 months at -40°C. Monitoring of the redox potential (RP) of the quarantined plasma was carried out directly on the day of sampling without freezing the sample, and then on days 1, 3, 7 and 14, as well as after 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 months of storage of frozen samples. Each of 15 blood plasma samples donated by clinically healthy volunteers was mixed in vitro with blood plasma quarantined for 6 months at a ratio 1:1, and the RP of the mixture was measured by a platinum microelectrode technique. Results. It was found that during the storage of quarantined samples at a temperature of -40°C, the blood RP shifted to more positive values in 70% of cases. Addition of the quarantined plasma to the plasma of practically healthy volunteer donors also led to a shift in the final mixture RP to positive values in 13 of 15 cases (87%). Conclusion. Significant changes in RP values have been found when measuring the RP of the quarantined blood plasma, demonstrating predominantly oxidative processes in the plasma. Since significant shift of RP in blood plasma to the positive values has been associated with the deterioration of the patient's state, we concluded that further clinical studies on the use of quarantined plasma with high positive RP values are warranted.

Keywords

• redox potential
• blood plasma
• quarantine
• platinum electrode
• transfusion
• oxidation