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Background The practice of leucoreduction and the need for compliance with production standards have a considerable impact in blood banks. In our country , the importance of evaluating several systems of filtration has been recently stressed as a result of the decision of many European countries with the aim to adopt a policy of a global filtration. In order to test such procedure we have compared two different in-line filters. Methods We studied 153 Packed Red Blood Cell (PRBC) units leucodepleted with in-line filters: 77 PRBC units were filtered with the Leucoflex LCR4 (Macopharma) and 80 PRBC units were filtered with Fresenius filters. The units were processed in accordance with the distribution Companies directives: the Macopharma PRBC were stored at 4°C for 24 hours before filtration, while the Fresenius bags were filtered after only 2 hours at 20°C. The assessment of the leucocytes reduction, of the hemoglobin level and its percentage reduction and the final value of the hematocrit has been investigated. Results Comparison of the effects of the two in-line filters are shown in the table. The log depletion after filtration has been estimated to 3.39 (SD=0.49) for Leucoflex LCR4 and to 4,45 (SD=0.64) for Fresenius filters. The loss of Hb (in percentage) was 1.8 times higher for Leucoflex LCR4 than Frosenius filters. Discussion Both the two filters have shown to be effective in terms of leucocyte depletion and erythrocyte recruitment, even if the efficiency reached by Fresenius filters appears to be strongly marked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]