Faculty of Health Sciences
School of Medicine
Department of Haematology
The effect of temperature on the stability of thawed plasma protein C and protein S assays.
As a reference laboratory, samples are often received from clinics and distant small laboratories for coagulation testing. Fresh samples are either tested immediately or frozen for later batch testing. Due to the transport distances, it is often not possible to submit fresh samples to a reference laboratory. Pre-analytical factors’ influences on sample integrity often disqualify samples from being tested fresh. It is therefore common practice to transport samples as frozen plasma, prepared according to a protocol. We often receive these samples thawed on arrival or left unattended over the weekend on a bench or in a fridge. Studies have been done to assess the stability of coagulation factors frozen at different temperatures, as well as storage at different temperatures. There are also data available on the effect of temperature and time delay as pre-analytic factors on coagulation assays. No data is available to our knowledge on the handling of samples that were thawed and stored at different temperatures before performing the requested coagulation assays
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