The Barcelona Tissue Bank was established from the merge of two previous multi-tissue banks. Potential donors are screened by Donor Center staff and multi-tissue retrieval is performed by specialized own teams. Tissue processing and preservation is performed in clean room facilities by specialised personnel. After quality control of both donor and all tissues results, the heart valves and vascular segments are stored until medical request. The aim of this report is to present the cardiovascular tissue activity and retrospectively evaluate the outcomes of the changes performed in last 20 years. Cardiovascular tissue from 4088 donors was received, specifically 3115 hearts and 2095 vascular segments were processed and evaluated. A total of 48% of the aortic valves, 68% of the pulmonary valves and 75% of the vascular segments were suitable for transplant. The main reason for discarding tissue was macroscopic morphology followed by microbiological results, for both valves and arteries. Altogether, 4360 tissues were distributed for transplantation: 2032 (47%) vascular segments, 1545 (35%) pulmonary valves and 781 (18%) aortic valves. The most common indication for aortic valve surgery was the treatment of endocarditis, while for pulmonary valves, it was congenital malformation reconstruction. Vascular segments were mainly used for reconstruction after ischemia. During this period, a number of changes were made with the goal of enhancing tissue quality, safety and efficacy. These improvements were achieved through the use of a new antibiotic cocktail, increasing of donor age criteria and changing the microbiological control strategy.

Fungal contamination of donor corneas, although rare, constitutes a serious infection risk to recipients. Therefore, microbiological quality control with methods optimized for fungal detection is crucial in eye banks to detect and discard contaminated corneas. This study aimed to compare the performance of different BACT/ALERT^® bottles (iFA Plus and iLYM) incubated at different temperatures (32 °C and 37 °C) when corneal preservation media, with or without amphotericin B, were cultured. A total of 6 culture conditions were compared by inoculation of fewer than 100 colony-forming units of 18 fungi (10 yeasts and 8 filamentous fungi). iFA Plus bottles incubated at 32 °C reliably detected 94.4% of fungi, regardless of amphotericin B presence, while iLYM bottles detected 77.8% in the absence of amphotericin B and 72.2% in its presence. At 37 °C, iFA Plus fungal detection decreased to 61.1%. iFA Plus bottles incubated at 32 °C provided the highest detection rates, effectively neutralizing the effect of amphotericin B and enabling recovery of both yeasts and filamentous fungi, except for Cladosporium. Our findings support that the optimal strategy for cornea sterility testing is incubating iFA Plus bottles at 32 °C for optimal fungal recovery, while maintaining iFN Plus at 37 °C to allow timely detection of anaerobic bacteria.