What are platelets?
Platelets are disc-shaped cells manufactured in the bone marrow. They are essential for normal blood clotting. Platelets have a relatively short life span and can only be stored for five days. A healthy person constantly replenishes their supply of circulating platelets from the bone marrow where they are made.
Platelets (or thrombocytes) are small blood components that help the clotting process by sticking to the lining of blood vessels. Platelets are made in the bone marrow and survive in the circulatory system for about nine days before being removed from the body by the spleen. The platelet helps prevent massive blood loss and blood vessel leakage resulting from trauma. Platelets are prepared by using a centrifuge to separate the platelet-rich plasma from the donated unit of whole blood. Platelets may also be obtained from a donor by a process known as apheresis, or plateletpheresis . In this process, blood is drawn from the donor into an apheresis instrument which separates the blood into its components, retains some of the platelets, and returns the remainder of the blood to the donor. This single donor platelet product contains about six times as many platelets as a unit of platelets obtained from whole blood. Platelets are used to treat a condition called thrombocytopenia, in which th
