The impact of the sample time of secondary bacterial culture on the risk of exposure to contaminated platelet components: A mathematical analysis

Background The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a guidance for bacterial risk control strategies for platelet components in September 2019 that includes strategies using secondary bacterial culture (SBC). While an SBC likely increases safety, the optimal timing of the SBC is unknown. Our aim was to develop a model to provide insight into the best time for SBC sampling. Study Design and Methods We developed a mathematical model based on the conditional probability of a bacterial contamination event. The model evaluates the impact of secondary culture sampling time over a range of bacterial contamination scenarios (lag and doubling times), with the primary outcome being the optimal secondary sampling time and the associated risk. Results Residual risk of exposure decreased with increasing inoculum size, later sampling times for primary culture, and using higher thresholds of exposure (in colony‐forming units per milliliter). Given a level of exposure, the optimal sampling time for secondary culture depended on the timing of primary culture and on the expiration time. In general, the optimal sampling time for secondary culture was approximately halfway between the time of primary culture and the expiration time. Conclusion Our model supports that the FDA guidance is quite reasonable and that sampling earlier in the specified secondary culture windows may be most optimal for safety.