Meeting Notes

be used within three to 24 hours in accordance with the ‘Standards for a Blood Transfusion Service.’ (b) The sterility test itself should be performed regularly at least once monthly and should include containers of blood that appear normal. The latter should be sampled within the 18th to 24th day after collection. The volume of the sample should be adequate, preferably 5-10 ml., inoculated into a total volume of fluid thioglycollate or thioglycollate broth medium 10 times the volume of the sample of blood. I t should be incubated for seven to nine days at a temperature of 30-32C. and subcultured on the third, fourth, or fifth day utilizing thioglycollate for seven to nine days at a temperature of 30-32C. (c) Instead of performing one test using an incubation temperature of 30-32 C., two tests may be performed: one at an incubation temperature at 18-22C., and one at an incubation temperature of 35-37 C. Walter and his associates have described a simple method for sterility testing of plastic bags with an integral donor tube. In this method a 1 ml. sample is harvested from the integral donor tubing, incubated for 10 days, and then streaked on blood agar and observed 24 hours later. This method may be found in the New Eng. J. Med. 257: 364, 1957. 5. T o avoid falsely identifying a recipient as Rh positive, one must employ a control system utilizing the recipient’s cells in its own serum and handling this system in the same manner as the test with the anti-Rh serum. The use of saline-active anti-Rh serum will also avoid false positives due to auto-agglutinins, hyperglobulinemia and other causes.”-Mark Falcon Lesses, M.D.