The impact of bowl size, program setup, and blood hematocrit on the performance of a discontinuous autotransfusion system.

Increased hematocrit and RBC recovery rates are obtained with the optimized program Popt with the discontinuous autotransfusion device. The emergency program Pem speeds up the process but leads to RBC loss and reduced plasma elimination rates; therefore, it should be restricted to emergency situations. All four different sized bowls have high performance. Plasma elimination is represented best by protein or albumin elimination rates.