Blood Transfusion Centre

Andrey Kolesov
Chief of Blood Transfusion Centre

Major Tasks

• Supplying blood products for the units of Almazov Centre and other medical facilities of St. Petersburg
• Creating a low-temperature blood bank for the storage of blood and bone marrow cells
• Implementing new transfusion products and blood substitutes as well as new programs and methods of transfusion therapy into the everyday practice of the Centre and other medical facilities of St. Petersburg
• Providing advisory and practical guidance in transfusion medicine to the medical facilities in St. Petersburg

Structure

• Administration
• Donor Testing Unit
• Blood Banking Unit
• Plasmapheresis and Cytapheresis Unit
• Plasma Quarantine Unit
• Blood and Bone Marrow Cryopreservation Unit
• Laboratory Testing Unit
• Handling and Forwarding Unit

Dedicated staff and advanced facilities enable the blood transfusion centre to collect and screen about 12,000 liters of blood per year, perform more than 3,000 plasmapheresis procedures, simultaneously store up to 1,000 units of red blood cells, platelets and other blood and bone marrow cells in a “blood bank” at ultralow temperatures.

The experienced medical staff has the highest level of expertise in blood transfusion service. The whole process is computerized, the barcode system is used for the collection and handling of blood components.

Major blood components prepared in the Blood Transfusion Centre:

• packed red blood cells without buffy coat
• packed red blood cells without buffy coat, collected by apheresis
• red blood cell concentrate resuspended in SAGM
• filtered red blood cell concentrate resuspended in SAGM
• thawed red blood cell concentrate
• washed red blood cell concentrate
• fresh frozen plasma from whole blood
• filtered fresh frozen plasma from whole blood
• filtered fresh frozen plasma collected by automated apheresis
• quarantine fresh frozen plasma
• filtered, quarantine fresh frozen plasma collected by automated apheresis
• virus-inactivated fresh frozen plasma from whole blood
• filtered, virus-inactivated fresh frozen plasma
• filtered, virus-inactivated fresh frozen plasma collected by automated apheresis
• immune plasma
• platelet rich plasma (min. 200 billion of platelets)
• apheresis platelet concentrate (min. 300 billion of platelets)
• thawed platelet concentrate
• filtered pooled platelet concentrate (min. 300 billion of platelets)
• platelet concentrate (from 1 unit of blood)

The Laboratory determines АВO blood group, Rh type and Kell phenotypes and provides personalized blood selection using state-of-the-art technologies and equipment.

The Centre has facilities for long-term banking of virtually all biological materials (stem cells, rare red blood cells, germ cells, tissue fragments and much more.

Almazov Centre invites blood donors to donate blood and help save the lives of patients.

Eligibility requirements:

To be eligible to donate whole blood, plasma or platelets, you must be:

• In good health.
• At least 18 years old.
• Able to pass the physical and health-history assessments.