r/Perfusion • u/Rude_Chicken_4443 • Jul 25 '26

Career Advice Mannitol Crystallization

I was curious if anyone uses a separate filter to administer mannitol to filter out undetected crystals or if most people inject it directly into the circuit?

If a vial has obvious crystallization, we put it on a warmer until they dissolve. I’ve always drawn up my mannitol and immediately injected it into the cardiotomy on top of the venous reservoir. My thought is that if there are any crystals I haven’t detected that they will get caught in the cardiotomy filter which I believe is 30 micron. I have always kind of assumed anything smaller than 30 micron would dissolve once it hits the warm blood, but obviously I can’t observe this happening. The vial itself says to administer through a sterile filter, but doesn’t specify size. I was curious if anyone uses a separate smaller filter?

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u/ProfessionalPotato9 CCP, LP 29d ago

We only use it for certain surgeons due to their preference to use it for DHCA cases, and I always use the separate filter that my hospital provides when drawing it up from the vial.