Seventeen different separation protocols based on more than 1100 thrombocytaphereses were tested. Twelve of these are reported on in this study. It became apparent that the most important variable is the centrifugation speed (1900 rpm at a blood flow of 50 ml/min). This made it possible to collect 3.5 to 3.8 x 10(11) thrombocytes (approx. 60% extraction efficiency) from 3.15 l blood. Further optimization of this procedure is desirable, since 10% of the thrombocytes still remain in the separation chamber. However, our optimization work was successful as far as the reduction of leukocyte and erythrocyte contamination is concerned, which ultimately resulted in leukocyte and erythrocyte contamination of about 1 x 10(7).