Relationship of post‐transfusion viability to deformability of stored red cells

Abstract

S ummary . During storage in the liquid state, red cells progressively lose their ability to survive in vivo and they become less deformable. An opportunity to test the hypothesis that these two changes are directly related arose when a donor was encountered whose red cells survived particularly badly after storage. It was found that red cells from this donor lost deformability abnormally rapidly during storage. Measurement of red cell deformability after storage may be of value in predicting the viability of the cells.