Blood Test Tube Separation

Series Summary

Blood is needed every two seconds. One in seven people entering a hospital will need blood. Blood, unlike many medications and procedures, can not be manufactured or harvested. Sixty percent of the population can donate blood, but less than five percent actually donate.

You have heard it all your life. “Donate blood, and donate regularly.” Blood donations are extremely important to millions of people all over the world. In the United States alone, more than five million people will need a blood transfusion each year. The benefits are hard to deny. By donating blood, you are saving lives. Though some may be skeptical to donate blood, this act of charity and small sacrifice saves cancer patients, accident victims, and many more. The blood donation process is very quick and relatively painless. Typically, four hundred and fifty milliliters of blood is drawn during a donation process. After blood is drawn, blood plasma levels return to normal in twenty-four hours, and red blood cells are replaced within three to five weeks. With such quick recovery time, it's astounding that so many do not donate blood. Just think. In one donation, you can save three lives.

In this free video series, you will learn all about the blood donation process. Let blood center experts show you what happens once the blood has left the donation center. Many test and screens are done on the blood to make sure it is disease free. So, if you are curious about blood testing, take some time, and watch this free video series today.

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Jan, and I'm the processing lab supervisor, so I'm going to kind of lead you through what happens to the tubes, after they get to the lab. So, we draw a cluster, what we call in the lab, of five tubes. So, there are three that are purple-topped tubes, and two that are red-topped tubes. The reason why we do that is because the manufacturers have a sample, requirement, for the type of sample we're actually using on the test. So, the purple-topped tube, the blood is prevented from clotting, so as you can see it will remix easily. These have settled down. And then a clot tube allows the blood to clot, so it will actually form a clot. The difference between the fluid then, is, in the purple-topped tube, it does not, it isn't allowed to clot, that's called plasma. So, some of the tests especially all of our NAT testing is, requires plasma. Whereas, our viral marker testing, this is a clot tube here, see the clot there? This is called serum. The difference between, one doesn't have all the clotting factors in it, and the other does. So, we will bring the tubes in. We sort them, because they're sorted by base, of where we'll actually do the testing. And then we'll spin them down. And depending then, after we spin them down, we have to look at, to see the quality of the serum with the plasma. For instance, this sample right here is a really good example of a patient that has really high fats in their blood. So, this is very lipemic. So, this one we can't use for testing. We'll usually ask the donors to lay off the fats and come back, and it won't be a problem. And then another one is whether the red cells have been ruptured during the draw. So, that's called hemolysis. And, if this gets too red, then we can't test it either. So, those samples, if we can't test it, then unfortunately, we can't use the unit. Do you want the (indistinct)"