Effects of blood product storage protectants on blood coagulation11The opinions expressed herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.

The ever-increasing demand for blood products challenges scientists to develop new and more effective techniques for their preservation. The progress of these novel preservation technologies uses a wide variety of cryoprotectant, lyoprotectant, and other preservatives, which will need to be explored and assessed for their biological effects during blood product formulation. The leading factor in protectant selection is for their ability to provide superior preservation for a particular blood product. We believe that such protectants used in blood product development should also be evaluated for their ability to preserve normal hemostasic mechanisms. In this review, high-molecular-weight cryoprotectants, lyoprotectants, polyols, amino acids, antioxidants, and surfactants, used because of their protective properties, were evaluated for their possible role in relation to their effect on normal hemostatic mechanisms.