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INFLUENCE OF STORAGE CONDITIONS OF PLACENTAL TISSUE ON STERILITY ANDHISTOLOGIC PROPERTIES OF AMNIOTIC MEMBRANED. Meller, H. Thomasen, K. P.SteuhlCornea Bank Essen, Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital Essen, GermanyPurpose: Cryopreserved amniotic membrane (AM) is a common tool for the treatment of severalophthalmologic applications because it provides beneficial clinical effects. The preparation of AMneeds to follow stringent standard operating procedures to ensure, quality and safety of the tissuefor clinical application. Part of the SOPs is to define how long and under which conditions donorplacentas can be stored without compromising clinical efficacy of the prepared tissue. Our aim was toevaluate the impact of storage time and temperature on clinical important features of AM.Methods: After informed consent placentas were obtained and stored for different periods of timeat various temperature conditions. In total there were six groups , each n=3, specified by the storagetimes and conditions: 1h at 8°C, 20°C and 40°C, 6h at 8°C, 1h at 40°C followed by 5h at 20°C and 1h at20°C followed by 5h at 8°C. Afterwards AM was prepared from the placentas and examined in regardof tissue sterility, histologic appearance and the basement membrane composition. Sterility controlswere performed at the department of microbiology. The AM was stained with hematoxilin/eosin andthe presence of the basement membrane components Laminin, fibronectin, collagen IV and collagenVII was analyzed by means of immunohistochemistry.Results: Only tissue from the group of samples which was stored for 1h at 40°C showedmicrobiological contamination with the bacterium Ralstonia pickettii whiles all other samples werenegative for microbial growth. The histologic appearance of the tissue did not differ within or betweenthe particular groups. Neither the general staining, nor the immunhistologic staining displayed arecognizable difference.Conclusions: The detected contamination is most likely an artifact which resulted from bacterialcontamination of the water bath used to hold the temperature of 40°C. There was no link between theexamined storage conditions of the placenta prior to preparation and microbial growth on the tissue.The examined storage conditions also did not seem to have a significant effect on the histologicalstructure of AM. Therefore we conclude, that storing the placenta up to 6h at these temperaturesbefore preparation is tolerable for tissue quality of the AM.XXV ANNUAL MEETING OF THE EUROPEAN EYE BANK ASSOCIATION Zagreb, Croatia 18/19 January 2013 75