Several methods for sampling, culturing, and decontaminating donor grafts are available
for cardiovascular tissue banks. Most of these protocols are not standardized, leaving
tissue banks to adapt their microbiological procedures to their tissue processing
routines. Effective microbiological testing and decontamination procedures are essential
to ensure tissue quality and safety for human application. This review presents the
different procedures currently available for microbiological testing in cardiovascular
tissue banks.
Impact statement
Sterility testing is a critical issue in the recovery, processing, and release of
tissue allografts. Contaminated allografts are often discarded, increasing costs, and
reducing tissue stocks. Given these concerns, it is important to determine the most
effective methodology for sterility testing. This work provides an overview of
microbiological methods for sampling and culturing donor grafts for cardiovascular
tissue banking.
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