Blood Bag Assemblies: I. Alteration or Contamination of ACD Solutions

Results from a study of five types of polyvinyl chloride blood bag assemblies containing ACD solutions have demonstrated that (1) water from the solution permeates the plastic walls producing a hypertonic solution and (2) that one or several ingredients from the plastic bag migrate into the ACD solution. Depending upon the specific overwrap or packaging system for the blood bag assemblies, the temperature of storage, and the length of storage, various degrees of permeation or hypertonicity occurred. Even though the migrated ingredients were in microquantities, it appears that a need exists to appraise the safety of certain plastic blood bag assemblies, not only from gross responses but from delayed or subtle responses not detected by conventional methods of testing.