The Contribution of Storage Medium and Membranes in the Microwave Dielectric Response of Packed Red Blood Cells Suspension

Abstract

During cold storage, packed red blood cells (PRBCs) undergo slow detrimental changes that are collectively termed storage lesion. The aging of the cells causes alterations in the composition of the storage-medium in the PRBC unit. In this paper, we present the comparison of the dielectric response of water in the primary (fresh) storage medium (citrate phosphate dextrose adenine solution, CPDA-1) versus the storage medium from three expired units of PRBCs. Dielectric response of the water molecules has been characterized by dielectric spectroscopy technique in the microwave frequency band (0.5–40 GHz). The dominant phenomenon is the significant increase of the dielectric strength and decrease the relaxation time τ for the samples of the stored medium in comparison with the fresh medium CPDA-1. Furthermore, we demonstrated that removing the ghosts from PRBC hemolysate did not cause the alteration of the dielectric spectrum of water. Thus, the contribution associated with water located near the cell membrane can be neglected in microwave dielectric measurements.