Platelet Donations
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What Are Platelets?
Your blood is made up of several components, the fluid that surrounds your blood cells is called plasma; it contains proteins, coagulation factors and other metabolites. The different types of cells in blood are the red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. The platelets are the cells that help to form a clot and keep you from bleeding.
What Do Platelets Do?
Most of the platelets in the body are stored in the bone marrow, liver, and spleen. When the number of circulating platelets is decreased, the body responds by sending platelets from storage areas into the blood circulation. There are a large amount of platelets in the circulating blood as well.
Who Needs Platelets?
Patients receiving chemotherapy and/or radiation treatment and those who are having a Bone Marrow Transplant, have especially low platelet counts and can bleed very easily. We need people to give platelets to maintain an adequate supply for these patients.
How Do We Get Platelets?
When a unit of whole blood is collected from a donor, only one unit of platelets can be made from that donation. As you can imagine, with the great need of the patients who require platelet transfusions, many more must be collected. Using a blood cell processor, at least six units of platelets can be collected from one donor in a Plateletapheresis donation.
The procedure takes approximately two hours. The donor will have a needle in each arm for that amount of time. In order to have a successful apheresis procedure, the donor must have very good veins. The blood will flow from one arm to the collection instrument where the platelets are removed and the balance of the blood is returned to the donor in the other arm. Sterile plastic software is used in the blood cell processor to collect the platelets from the donor. The donor's blood is never in contact with the instrument itself -- so there is no risk of being exposed to another person's blood.
Who Can Donate?
The requirements for donating platelets are the same as for a regular blood donation, except that a platelet donor cannot have aspirin or other anti-inflammatory drugs, like ibuprofen, for at least 36 hours prior to the donation. These drugs greatly weaken the effectiveness of platelets and therefore of platelet transfusions. And of course the donor must have very good veins in both arms.
Does Blood Type Matter?
Since there are no red blood cells in a platelet product, we are not limited to using the same donor blood types as with red cells.
Make an appointment Today!
Since the process of donating platelets takes two hours and we have a limited number of spaces, we must closely monitor our times of donation. Plateletapheresis donations are scheduled by appointment only. We have appointment times Monday through Friday starting at 7:30am, 8:00am, 10:00am, 10:30am, 12:30pm, 1:00pm, and 3:00pm. Our Saturday appointment times are at 7:30am, 8:00am, 10:00am, and 10:30am.
To make an appointment or for any questions, e-mail us or call (323) 669-2441.
