Evaluation of an ethidium monoazide–enhanced 16<scp>S</scp> r<scp>DNA</scp> real‐time polymerase chain reaction assay for bacterial screening of platelet concentrates and comparison with automated culture

Abstract

These results demonstrate that the 16S PCR assay is less sensitive than BacT/ALERT and inappropriate for early testing of concentrates. However, rapid PCR assays such as this may be suitable for a strategy of late or prerelease testing.