Turkish Journal of Medical Sciences
Abstract
Background/aim: Red cell cryopreservation is essential for immunohematology reference laboratories. Various cryopreservation methods maintain the structural integrity of red cells, such as bulk freezing with glycerol and droplet freezing with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). In this paper, we provide a technical note with real-world data and report our experience with a modified PVP bulk-freezing method in a transfusion medicine setting.Materials and methods. Red cells were separated from whole blood samples and incubated for 1 h at room temperature with PVP with slow agitation or no agitation before freezing. Instead of using the established method of shock freezing droplets in liquid nitrogen, the red cells were frozen as 1 mL bulk samples. Recovery rates were determined for different thawing temperatures.Results. The overall red cell recovery rate was 45%±9% (mean±standard deviation). The recovery rates were 42.3%±8.1% in samples incubated without agitation (n = 27) and 47.9%±9.3% with slow agitation (n = 24) before freezing (p = 0.017). The recovery rates at different thawing temperatures, were 34.0%±2.0% at 22 °C, 46.6%±9.3% at 37 °C, and 40.8%±4.9% at 42°C (p=0.007). A generalized linear model confirmed that slow agitation during incubation yielded higher recovery than no agitation (p = 0.029).Conclusion. Bulk freezing of red cells with PVP in liquid nitrogen yielded 45% recovery. Our modified method may be preferred for cryopreservation and storage of large volumes. Bulk freezing with PVP can be particularly useful in applications where maximizing storage efficiency is more important than minimizing cell loss.
DOI
10.55730/1300-0144.6193
Keywords
defrosting, Immunohematology, laboratory techniques, long term storage, thawing temperature
First Page
608
Last Page
612
Publisher
The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
GÜRLEK GÖKÇEBAY, D, & FLEGEL, W. A (2026). Red cell cryopreservation for serologic testing: bulk freezing with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) . Turkish Journal of Medical Sciences 56 (2): 608-612. https://doi.org/10.55730/1300-0144.6193
