Abstract

Because of the short life span and high metabolic rate of avian red cells, storage of these cells is difficult.³ With the lack of readily available hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers, practitioners are hard-pressed to treat birds with life-threatening anemia if fresh whole blood from a homologous donor is not available. Cryopreservation would allow for long-term storage of avian red blood cells and serve as a source of blood if a homologous donor is unavailable. Hydroxyethyl starch (HES) has been used to cryopreserve human and canine red blood cells.^1,2,4,5 Our hypothesis was that HES would be equally effective for cryopreserving chicken red blood as assessed by saline stability, cell recovery, and apoptotic markers. Results suggest excellent post-thaw saline stability (95.5%) but unacceptable cell recovery (76.8%). This presentation overviews the preliminary investigation of HES for avian red blood cell cryopreservation.

Literature Cited

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