Bacterial contamination of organ graft preservation solution and infection after transplantation.

Infectious complications represent a major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with organ transplantation. Contamination of preservation solution (PS) can lead to life-threatening complications in the recipients. For a 3-year period, we investigated the bacterial contamination of both PSs and graft fragments, recipient infections, and explored the link between them. In total 137 organs were transplanted, and 131 organ and perfusate cultures out of 426 tested (30.8%) gave a positive bacterial culture, mainly with coagulase-negative staphylococci. Overall, 80 recipients out of 137 (58.4%) had at least 1 infection during the 4-month post-graft surveillance period. Twelve recipients had an infection with the same bacterial species that was recovered in the corresponding graft. However, based on pulsed-field gel electrophoresis typing results, only 1 case was very likely cross-transmitted via the transplantation.