Long-Term Storage and Preservation of Red Blood Cells,

Humans have experimented with blood transfusions for over 300 years and have attempted to preserve human blood since the early 1900s. The first modern attempts to store blood were stimulated by World War I when blood was stored in citrate-glucose solutions Robertson 1918 Rous and Turner 1916. During World War II, the increased need for blood plasma and whole blood resulted in the development of a solution called acid-citrate-dextrose ACD0 for 21-day refrigerated storage of blood. A slight variation of ACD, called CPD, was introduced in the late 1950s. For CPD, phosphate was added to the citrate and dextrose, which slightly improved the viability of stored red cells, although the dating period was held to 21 days. Blood preservation solutions remained unchanged until the late 1970s when adenine was first added to CPD to produce CPDA-1, which extended the shelf life of blood to 35 days Peck et al. 1981. CPDA-1 appears to be the industrys final attempt to modify the anticoagulant solution for better blood preservation. However, the success of U.S. and European blood banks with CPDA-1 has encouraged the development of modern additive solutions for component-specific preservation.