Serratia marcescens

Record number: 
1030
Adverse Occurrence type: 
MPHO Type: 
Time to detection: 
1-15 hours
Alerting signals, symptoms, evidence of occurrence: 
Febrile Non Hemolytic Transfusion Reaction (FNHTR) characterized by increase in temp. above 38°C, or chills and rigor in the absence of fever, with no evidence of hemolysis. Tachycardia, elevated blood pressure.
Demonstration of imputability or root cause: 
Symptoms of sepsis as defined by surveillance (BaCON). The blood culture results and timing suggested that these patients likely had catheter-related bloodstream infections caused by transfusion through a CVC with subclinical microbial colonization.
Suggest references: 
Ricci, K.S., Martinez, F., Lichtiger, B. and Han, X.Y. (2014). Septic transfusion reactions during blood transfusion via indwelling central venous catheters. Transfusion 54(10): 2412-18.
Expert comments for publication: 
Report was the result of active surveillance in the BaCon study. Cases were assigned imputability based on symptoms (97% of cases had rigors or fever meeting the definition) and culture (93% had a positive gram stain on the component implicated). Data was not presented for any individual case so specifics are unavailable.