Development of a ready-to-use antibiotic conservation solution for arterio-venous grafts

Although surgical procurement and conservation techniques have been improved, some organs or tissues might still become contaminated between procurement and grafting. To avoid such incident, the different procurement centres look forward to setting up precise decontamination protocols, in order to avoid the loss of already too-rare grafts. This precise goal led Reims University Hospital to develop an arterio-venous graft conservation solution. It is a frozen, ready-to-use antibiotics admixture in which arterial grafts are placed between procurement and freezing in the tissues bank. The stability study should allow a more rational use of this solution, determining an expiry date and a maximum delay of use after thawing. Cefotaxime and vancomycin assays were carried out with a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)/UV method, whereas gentamicin was dosed using fluorescence polarization immunoassay (FPIA). Composed of vancomycin, cefotaxime, and gentamicin in an isotonic, buffered sodium chloride and glucose solution, the antibiotic graft conservation solution developed at Reims University Hospital is stable for 6 months at -20 degrees C and 24 h at room temperature after thawing. Solutions can not be frozen again after thawing. Although it does not contain macromolecules, as recommended by the Etablissement Français des Greffes, the developed solution is the sole one in France having had benefited from a stability study. Moreover, the different procurement teams are entirely satisfied with our solution.