The impact on blood donor screening for human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis C virus, and hepatitis B virus using plasma from frozen-thawed plasma preparation tubes.

Background: Blood services are required to maintain repositories of frozen samples for confirmation of results and/or retrospective testing. The Australian Red Cross Blood Service archives donor samples in plasma preparation tubes (PPTs). This study aims to evaluate the effect of freeze-thawing and extended frozen storage on the ability to detect human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and hepatitis B virus (HBV) using blood donation screening assays in samples stored in PPTs.