Toward the Use of Centrifugation for Point-of-Care Plasma Separation: Evaluation of a Compact Battery-Powered Centrifuge

Background/Objectives: Despite advances in point-of-care (POC) blood test development, the lack of a simple, low-cost approach to the separation of capillary blood to generate liquid plasma remains a barrier to POC measurement of many analytes. The battery-operated, internally balanced Labcorp TrueSpin® centrifuge offers a potential POC solution for blood collected into a BDMicrotainer®. We compared the quality of plasma generated by TrueSpin centrifugation versus conventional centrifugation. Methods: Venipuncture was performed on 10 volunteers. After collection of blood into Sarstedt Monovettes® (Lithium Heparin with gel (LiHep/Gel), EDTA), blood from the same tubing was collected into three Microtainers (LiHep/gel, LiHep without gel (LiHep), EDTA). Microtainer and Monovette samples received TrueSpin and conventional centrifugation, respectively. Hemolysis index and plasma amino acids (n = 24) were measured for all Monovette and Microtainer plasma samples. For 3 additional volunteers, capillary blood was collected from the arm into LiHep/Gel and EDTA Microtainers using the Labcorp Comfort DrawTM device with a gentleheel® lancet and centrifuged (TrueSpin) to generate plasma. Results: TrueSpin centrifugation took approximately 10 min; batteries supported 8–11 runs. Microtainer plasma H-indices (including blood from Comfort Draw) were ≤10. For all 24 amino acids combined, measurements for TrueSpin Microtainer samples had excellent Pearson’s correlation (r > 0.99) with paired conventional Monovette plasma. Conclusions: Plasma quality after TrueSpin centrifugation of Microtainer blood samples is comparable to plasma quality after conventional Monovette centrifugation, including for capillary blood collected using the Comfort Draw. The TrueSpin was reliable and easy to use. The TrueSpin centrifuge has potential future use for POC plasma separation.