In my previous post I used the terms "serum" and "plasma" somewhat interchangeably.
Plasma is the yellowish liquid portion of the blood when the red blood cells are separated. It includes the clotting factors like fibrinogen that cause the blood to clot.
Serum is the plasma WITHOUT the clotting factors in it.
In our blood bank we accept patient specimens in tubes with the anticoagulant, EDTA. The EDTA keeps the clotting factors from clotting the red cells. Therefore when these tubes are centrifuged, we are left with PLASMA on the top because the clotting factors are still present and not involved in a red cell clot.
We can also accept specimen in a plain clot tube. These tubes don't have anti-coagulant in them and may have a clot additive to facilitate the red cell portion to clot. When these tubes are spun, we are left with SERUM on top because the clotting factors are occupied in the clot at the bottom of the tube.
In either case, ABO and allo-antibodies are present in both the serum and plasma.
We prefer the EDTA tubes because the red cells remain liquid and we are able to pipette and manipulate them easily. Every blue moon we get a clot tube, which is okay if we just need the serum or a couple red cells for typing, but if we need a volume of red cells for testing we cannot obtain it from the clot.
Remember: Plasma has clotting factors. Serum does NOT.
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