Study Confirms Blood Products Remain Viable After Three Weeks in the Arctic

Trauma and hemorrhage care in Canada’s High Arctic is complicated by long evacuation times, extreme temperatures, and limited access to blood products. In remote military and northern communities, reaching a hospital can take hours or days, making reliable blood storage and transport essential for emergency transfusions. In this context, new research demonstrates that blood products can remain suitable for transfusion after a three-week Arctic deployment despite difficult environmental and logistical conditions.

Researchers at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada) helped evaluate the transport and storage of blood products during Canadian military operations in the High Arctic, focusing on logistics, cold-chain performance, and post-deployment quality. The study assessed whether appropriate storage conditions could be maintained during transport by truck, plane, and snowmobile. Blood products traveled from Ottawa through Quebec City to Resolute and Eureka, Nunavut, including the Canadian Armed Forces Arctic Training Centre and Fort Eureka.

Maintaining product-specific storage temperatures was essential throughout the deployment. Whole blood and red blood cells required refrigeration between 1°C and 6°C, while plasma was stored frozen at -18°C. Dried plasma and platelets were kept at room temperature. These requirements posed significant logistical challenges as the products encountered temperatures ranging from 30°C in overheated aircraft cabins to -40°C outdoors.

Following the three-week deployment, the blood products underwent laboratory quality testing in Edmonton, which confirmed that they retained their functional integrity and remained suitable for transfusion through their expected expiration dates. The findings were published in Transfusion in a study titled “Blood Products in High Arctic Military Operations: Logistics, Cold-Chain Performance, and Post-Deployment Assessment.” Building on these results, researchers plan further collaboration with the Canadian Armed Forces this coming winter to validate emergency and contingency blood collection procedures under operational conditions.

“What we've learned through conflict is that a fighting force that has access to blood will have a higher survival rate than a fighting force that doesn't. So blood becomes really as essential as bullets when it comes to deploying them to the front line,” said Dr. Jason Acker, professor in the Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology and Biomedical Engineering, senior research scientist with Canadian Blood Services and associate vice president of research integrity support for the University of Alberta. 

“We need to ensure lifesaving blood is available wherever our forces operate and Canadians reside. This research demonstrates that we can transport blood thousands of kilometers through some of the harshest environments on Earth,” stated Kanwal Singh, co-principal investigator at Defence Research and Development Canada.

Related Links
University of Alberta
Defence Research and Development Canada