“…Technical improvements enable modern blood cell separators to rapidly process several liters of donor blood and to collect very large quantities of individual blood cells from each donor during a single apheresis procedure. The latest generation of apheresis machines—the Amicus (introduced by Baxter [Deerfield, IL] in 1995), the Trima (CaridianBCT [Lakewood, CO], 1997), or the COMTEC (Fresenius Hemocare [Bad Homburg, Germany], 1999)—have demonstrated significant progress with respect to collection efficiency, citrate management, and donor comfort (e.g., single‐needle [SN] usage, short processing times) and are specifically designed to harvest at least 2 units of platelet (PLT) components (COMTEC) or even more and different blood products (multicomponent donations: Amicus, Trima, Haemonetics MCSplus [Haemonetics, Braintree, MA]) 1‐6 . Moreover, as nearly all contaminating red blood cells (RBCs) and white blood cells (WBCs) can be returned to the donor, it is common practice to repeat apheresis donations at close intervals.…”