Repeating blood cultures after initial bacteremia: When and how often?

[摘要] Current literature lacks strong evidence forrepeating previously positive blood culturescollected appropriately—ie, 10 mL of bloodfor aerobic culture and 10 mL for anaerobicculture from 2 different sites, and a positiveresult from both sets. However, because of therisk of serious complications of bacteremia,particularly in critically ill patients, many clinicians order multiple, repeated sets of bloodcultures. Tabriz et al1 found that one-third of hospitalized patients got repeat cultures after aninitial set, regardless of the result of the fi rstset. Most (83.4%) of those cultures yieldedno growth, 9.1% grew the same pathogen,and 5.0% were contaminated. Finding a newpathogen was rare, occurring in only 2.5% ofrepeated cultures.

[学科分类] 卫生学