Commercial blood cell separation systems versus tube centrifugation methods for the preparation of platelet-rich plasma: a preliminary cross-sectional study

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Clinical studies claim that platelet-rich plasma (PRP) accelerates tissue healing due to its high concentration of growth factors and that the combination with leukocytes improves the antimicrobial effect of the concentrate. Most of these studies obtained PRP using different separation systems, and few analyzed the content of the PRP used for treatment. This study characterized the composition of PRP and white blood cells (WBC) from a single donor produced by three commercially available PRP separation systems and two anticoagulated general analytical tubes. METHODS:Five patients donated 50 mL of blood, which was processed to produce PRP and WBC using three PRP concentration systems (i.e., Easy PRP Kit, GloPRP, and Wego) and two tubes for general analysis anticoagulated with ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and citrate. Platelets and WBC in combination with their concentrates were analyzed by automated systems in a clinical laboratory.RESULTS: There were no significant differences in the average concentrations of PRP platelets and WBC between GloPRP and the tubes for general analysis with EDTA and citrate; however, the Easy PRP Kit gave results much superior to the rest of the methods, especially comparing it with the Wego Kit, whose concentrates were especially low, even nonexistent for WBC. CONCLUSIONS:The Easy PRP Kit concentrates WBC-rich PRP, resulting in increased WBC concentrations, compared with low WBC-low PRP of GloPRP and general tube methods for EDTA and citrate analysis and the even lower concentration of PRP from the Wego Kit, with the absence of leukocytes.

Microvascular Fragments Protect Ischemic Musculocutaneous Flap Tissue from Necrosis by Improving Nutritive Tissue Perfusion and Suppressing Apoptosis

“…Hence, the application of MVF may represent a promising strategy to enhance the success rates of flap surgery. In fact, it is conceivable that in a future clinical scenario, autologous MVF are rapidly harvested from the lipoaspirates of patients by means of automated separation systems, as they are already available for the isolation of stem cells or the generation of platelet-rich plasma [42,43], and then directly retransferred into freshly operated flaps. This intra-operative one-step approach, which would not be associated with additional extensive surgical interventions, could markedly contribute to reducing ischemic flap complications and the related patient morbidity.…”

Nematic Fibrin Fibers Enabling Vascularized Thrombus Implants Facilitate Scarless Cutaneous Wound Healing

“…[ 27 ] In addition, PRP matrix grafts containing amorphous fibrin fibers provide a microenvironment unsuitable for endothelial cells to form vascular structures because of the high elastic modulus [ 28 ] and the lack of topological cues offered by aligned extracellular matrix (ECM) fibers facilitating vascularization. [ 29 ] The last drawback of PRP is a low harvesting volume (5–10% of whole blood), [ 30 ] which could be insufficient to create implants to treat a large area wound. Although electrospinning has been used to align synthetic fibers, [ 31 ] it is not applicable to fibrin fibers because the physical properties of blood plasma, such as conductivity, viscosity, and temperature, are not adjustable.…”