New finding: Biobank storage time affects blood test results

The amount of time a blood sample has been stored at a biobank may affect the test results as much as the blood sample provider’s age. These are the findings of a new study from Uppsala University, which was published in the scientific journal EBioMedicine. Until now, medical research has taken into account age, sex and health factors of the person providing the sample, but it turns out that storage time is just as important.

They analysed 380 different samples from 106 women between the ages of 29 and 73. To study the impact of storage time, only samples from 50-year-old women were used in order to isolate the time effect. 108 different proteins were analysed. In addition to how long a sample had been frozen, the researchers also looked at what year the sample was taken and the age of the patient when the sample was taken.

‘We suspected that we’d find an influence from storage time, but we thought it would be much less’, says Professor Ulf Gyllensten. ‘It has now been demonstrated that storage time can be a factor at least as important as the age of the individual at sampling.’

Blood from biobanks has been used in research aimed at producing new drugs and testing new treatment methods. The results of this study are important for future drug research, but it is not possible or necessary, to repeat all previous biobank analyses.


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New finding: Biobank storage time affects blood test results

Source: Uppsala University, Sweden