Platelet components: is there need or room for quality control assays of storage lesions?

Abstract

Preview
Considerable effort has been expended over the past decades to harmonise and standardise the production of labile blood components. This effort has had two major goals: the first is to provide blood components that have expected effects which can be monitored and followed1; the second is to rationalise the processing of blood components, complying with quality schemes in blood establishments, given that it is generally accepted that quality and safety reinforce each other2. This has led to very valuable progress, although it has also produced some ambiguity: it is often perceived that blood components are highly "standardised". In fact, there are a nearly infinite number of variables, especially as far as concerns platelet components. In our opinion, this precludes real standardisation of platelet components. [...]