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Article: FDA approves platelet bacteria test.(NOTEWORTHY)(Brief article)
- Article from:
- Oncology Nursing Forum
- Article date:
- May 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Oncology Nursing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The FDA cleared the Platelet Pan Genera Detection Test System (Verax Biomedical, Inc.) for marketing, the first rapid test to detect bacterial contamination in blood platelets before transfusion. Bacterial contamination of platelets is the leading infectious cause of patient deaths after transfusions. To reduce the risk, blood centers typically culture samples of the platelets one day after donation, and then read the cultures within another day to determine whether the units are contaminated. In some cases, however, the number of bacteria present at the time of the culture are so low that they cannot be ...