20/10/2022
What do different colours of plasma mean?
Plasma has different colours, and they all have their meanings.
The colour of plasma varies from one sample to another from barely yellow to dark yellow and sometimes brown, orange or green tinge.
Some plasma samples are clear, others are milky or turbid.
Occasionally, plasma from hemolyzed samples appears reddish.
The colors of blood plasma are:
✓Yellow
✓Reddish
✓Green
✓Milky white
These colors have different meanings.
Normal Plasma: Colour appears yellow, it indicates that red blood cells are normally suspended.
Hemolytic: Reddish plasma is usually caused by red blood cells that have ruptured and decomposed, this process is known as hemolysis. Smokers with high levels of ni****ne are more prone to having reddish-orange plasma due to the contaminated lack of oxygen in their system.
Icteric: Plasma looks greenish as a result of pregnancy, intake of birth-control pills containing estrogen, rheumatoid arthritis, and drugs such as sulfonamides or due to sepsis with gram-negative cryophilic bacteria such as Pseudomonas.
Lipemic: Blood plasma can sometimes be milky white and cloudy. This phenomenon is known as lipemia, it occurs when a donor has consumed fatty food prior to donating. Cloudy blood plasma cannot be used to manufacture plasma products.
Note: For lipemic, when the plasma appears too cloudy and milky, this may be a possible sign of hyperlipidemia. A condition in which there are high levels of fat particles or lipids in the blood.
