A team lead by Handa Fellow and Professor of Physiology Pawel Swietach, working with NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), has developed a method of assessing the ability of red blood cells to deliver oxygen by measuring their shape.
This test has the potential to improve blood banking, as well as transplant and transfusion medicine. The formula, FlowScore, predicts the speed at which red blood cells release their oxygen, a key process for oxygenating the body's tissues, especially in those receiving large transfusions.
Fresh, healthy red blood cells have a unique biconcave shape, which enables efficient oxygen release. However, during refrigerated storage, these cells become energetically stressed and more spherical, which slows oxygen release. Using transplant kidneys, the researchers demonstrated perfusion with blood units that had undergone storage-related kinetic rundown was associated with poorer oxygen delivery, and that this could be restored by biochemically rejuvenating - or refreshing - the blood. FlowScore can therefore provide a critical assessment of blood quality.
Critically, FlowScore can be obtained from routinely used haematology analysers – hospital equipment that passes blood cells through a laser beam to study their characteristics. The pattern of scattering when light hits a cell reveals information about their size and shape and this information was found to accurately predict oxygen release from red blood cells, leading to the creation of the FlowScore formula. This innovation simplifies and speeds up measurements of red blood cell oxygen transport.
FlowScore can now be used globally by hospitals and blood banks as a quality control measure during processing and storage of blood. FlowScore was able to quantify the beneficial effects of rejuvenation and detect periods of blood handling outside blood bank-grade conditions. This could be key in monitoring stored blood quality in developing countries with higher ambient temperatures.
FlowScore could also provide a way to check the quality of blood for specific vulnerable patient groups.
Read the Lancet’s eBiomedicine article, describing the research, here.
Read news items on the NHS Blood and Transplant website and the Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics website here and here.