Valutazione microbiologica di unità di sangue felino prelevate con sistema aperto

Increasing interest and availability of blood products has helped to make transfusion medicine a common practice also in veterinary medicine. The aim of this prospective study was to evaluate safety of feline stored whole blood units collected with a open system. The feline blood unit analysed in this study was collected from 26 healthy donors cats donors at the Reparto di Medicina Emotrasfusionale (REV) of University of Milan. The analyses were done on the whole blood units on day 0 and after 35 days of storage at 4 ± 2°C in CPDA-1 preservative solution. Each unit was microbiological tested for bacterial contamination and macroscopically evaluated for change in colour or presence of fibrin clots. None of the analysed blood units resulted positive for bacterial growth at blood culture, neither on day 0 nor on day 35; no blood units presented darkness or fibrin clots at macroscopic examination. At the expiration date of 35 days of conservation feline whole blood units result a safe product for the absence of bacterial contamination. This preliminary study showed that in feline transfusion medicine whole blood could be stored for more than 24 hours even if collected with an open system. To reach these results a standardized operation protocol that minimized the contamination is needed.