LeeHL

The patients are not stimulated prior to donation and nothing else is used during the collection process.

We have not done Wright-Giemsa stains, but all our testing has proven that we are not dealing with any type of microbe. We did play with adding Urea and EDTA to separate bottles, with the thought that either would break up clear the media if the turbidity was due to protein, but that didn't show anything. We had the same result when we added Tween to see if the turbidity was due to lipids. We did extensive experimenting today to narrow down what part of our process is leading to the turbidity. We definitely know that some substance in our process is reacting to something in the BTA media (we do not get turbidity if we test plasma in plain TSB). And we are working with biomerieux R&D, but they have no resolutions yet. I'll let you know more next week!

The plasma product is collected using the auto-PBMS procedure on a leuk machine. We are interested in getting lots of WBCs, especially monocytes. The anticoagulant in the bags is ACD-A. We are seeing this issue with plasmas drawn from 3 different sites, so it not site-dependent. As far as we know, the maker of the leuk bags has not made any changes, but we may have to dig into that issue more. Our final product contains dendritic cells (we have matured these from the monocytes collected during the leuk) diluted in the plasma. USP sterility and mycoplasma testing on the final product is always no growth, which is another reason why we think we don't have a plasma contamination issue.

Thanks, Heather, I'm a long-time user of BTA, so I realize that some organisms won't turn the sensor yellow. I'm also a microbiologist, so I understand that some organisms might be hard to grow. But I'm facing a very baffling situation right now. We are seeing gross turbidity with most of our plasma samples 3-5 days after inoculating into the aerobic BTA bottle. With the amount of turbidity present, organisms should be seen on a smear and should grow on subculture, but we're having no luck in either area. I've talked to bmx and they haven't had any similar complaints, though I am ready to talk to them again. Since I know the blood bank group often tests plasma specimens, I was hoping your group might have encountered similar situations in the past. Thanks!

My company tests leukapheresed plasma in BacT/ALERT bottles. Recently, we have see heavy turbidity in the aerobic bottle only after 3-5 days of incubation; the instrument never calls the bottles positive. We don't see anything when we gram stain the turbid media and get no growth on subculture. Has anyone else experienced this phenomenom? Thanks!