Is Fresh Really That Fresh? Time-Dependent Quality Loss in Live Specimens.

Poster Highlights

• In this study, we compared changes in cell count and cell population frequencies between fresh whole blood and whole blood fixed with TokuKit over time.
• We observed the following results:
  • Live processing of samples results in 49% loss in cell number within 72 hours.
  • Cell loss is not uniformly distributed across cell populations.
    • Monocytes show a 87% reduction when processed live at 72 hours.
    • Neutrophils show a 48% reduction when processed live at 72 hours.
    • Rare lymphocyte subsets show a >25% change in frequency when processed live within 51 hours.
• Coefficients of variation (CV) in major immune subset frequencies for inter-run, intra-run, and inter-kit precision showed that over 95% of immune populations had CVs <30% between replicates under all experimental conditions.
• These findings address critical issues of stability and precision, which are crucial for large, multi-centered clinical studies and overcome the drawbacks associated with live sample collection in clinical studies.