The authors investigated filtration of platelet-poor plasma through a 0.2-micron filter for the analysis of beta-thromboglobulin (beta-TG) and platelet factor 4 (PF4) in frozen specimens. Platelets were detected by electron micrograph in the platelet-poor plasma preparation without filtration. No platelets or platelet fragments were seen after filtration. Freezing the unfiltered specimens resulted in a significant increase in the beta-TG and PF4 concentrations, presumably because of release of these proteins from the platelet alpha-granules during freezing and thawing. There was no change in the PF4 levels and only a slight decrease in beta-TG levels after freezing of the filtered specimens. The filtered samples could be frozen for later batch analysis, resulting in considerable cost savings to the laboratory.
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Schiebout-Clark et al. (1990) studied this question.