Evaluation of the value of anaerobic culture in bacterial contamination forapheresis platelets / 中国输血杂志

Objective To determine the potential deficiency due to lack of anaerobic culture and evaluate the effect to reduce adverse reaction associated to transfusion-translated bacterial infection.Methods The result of 9 758 units of apheresis platelet concentrates (PCs)detected with automated microbial detection system were reviewed and the medical records of the patients that received the contaminated PCs were followed.Results The confirmed positive rates by aerobic and anaerobic cultures were 0.06％ (6/9 758)and 0.16％ (16/9 758),respectively.In 10 of 16 yield cases,only the anaerobic culture was positive.The most of the bacterial detected by anaerobic culture only were Propionibacterium acnes.Their mean detection time from inoculation was 96.8±18.21 hours.Conclusion Addition of anaerobic culture would enhance the detection of bacterial contamination in PCs.However,since only slow-growing bacteria were detected,and because their clinical significance was debatable,blood service should select feasible and costeffective projects using only aerobic bottle for bacterial screening,like the majority of licensed blood centers in North America and Hong Kong,China.

Application of the BacT/ALERTR 3D system for sterility testing of injectable products

Sterility testing as described in the pharmacopoeia compendia requires a 14-day incubation period to obtain an analytical result. Alternative methods that could be applied to evaluating product sterility are especially interesting due to the possibility of reducing this incubation period and thus the associated costs. The aims of this study were to evaluate the performance of the BacT/ALERT^R 3D system in detecting microorganisms in large-volume parenteral solutions that were intentionally contaminated and to compare this system to pharmacopoeia sterility testing using the membrane filtration method. The results indicated that there were no significant differences between the methods regarding the ability to detect microbial contamination; however, detection with the BacT/ALERT^R 3D system was faster compared to the pharmacopoeia method. Therefore, the BacT/ALERT^R 3D system is a viable alternative for assessing the sterility of injectable products.