Can dipstick method help in bacterial detection in platelet bags? A tertiary care hospital’s blood bank review

Objective: to find the bacterial and biochemical details of bags used in platelet transfusion. methods: this cross-sectional study was carried out at a tertiary care hospital of saudi arabia (king khalid hospital,najran) from january to june 2012,and comprised platelet bags. samples for bacterial detection and biochemical testing of platelet bags were taken from blood bags on day 6 of donation. bacterial detection was done by using aerobic culture bottle,different gram stain,cultures and analytical profile index strips. glucose,ph and protein measurements were done by multistix dipstick method. spss 16 was used for data analysis. results: of the 352 platelet bags,1(0.28%) showed bacterial growth on day 6 of collection. that bacterium was staphylococcus epidermidis. glucose content and ph of that platelet bag was 144.14mg/dl and 5,respectively. the overall mean ph of platelet bags was 6.69±0.55 (range: 3-7). moreover,255(72.4%) bags showed ph of 7,90(25.5%) of 6,5(1.4%) of 5 and 2(0.57%) showed ph of 3 on day 6. the overall mean protein level was 6.162±0.204g/dl (range: 5.8-6.6). pearson bivariate correlation between platelet bag's ph and glucose content was 0.707 (p=0.001). conclusion: positive correlation was found between platelet bag's glucose and ph levels. © 2016,pakistan medical association. all rights reserved.