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What Makes Plasma and Serum Different from Each Other?

How is Plasma different Serum?


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Plasma and serum are both blood component that are very important to the body. These blood components are different from each when it comes to functions and components. they also differ on how they are being extracted from the whole blood. That is why they are sometimes called as blood plasma and blood serum.

Plasma
When we say plasma, it is a blood component that contains the clotting factor which is fibrinogen. Plasma is made from a other blood factors and mostly water which includes fibrin and its color is yellowish and its volume makes up 55% of the overall blood volume.

Plasma is extracted in the blood after it has been separated from other components through isolating it from other blood components. The process includes rotating the blood in a container at a top speed. It is often used to treat patients who have very low clotting factors.

Serum
Serum is a blood component that is composed of water, proteins of about 6% - 8% of the blood, minerals, hormones, electrolytes, and carbon dioxide. The proteins in the serum are called serum globulins and serum albumins. These proteins are extracted through electrophoresis. Serum is actually the liquid that is retained after fibrinogen, RBC, and WBC are extracted. They are also can be extracted after the coagulation of the blood plasma wherein the clot will shrink. Once the clot has shrunk, this will allow serum to be extracted easily.

The reason why blood components such as serum and plasma are being extracted separately is that different blood components are being used to different problems in the body such as liver failure and blood clotting issues. Being able to separate different blood components would allow health care workers to personalize their treatments based on the current conditions of their patients. They can use blood components that are only necessary for the treatment of the patients.

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