The Southern Medical Journal (SMJ) is the official, peer-reviewed journal of the Southern Medical Association. It has a multidisciplinary and inter-professional focus that covers a broad range of topics relevant to physicians and other healthcare specialists.

SMJ // Article

Letter to the Editor

Being Cultured While Culturing

Authors: Arjun Gupta, MD

Abstract

To the Editor: Although blood cultures remain the gold standard for the diagnosis of bloodstream infections, they are plagued by false-positive results. The Infectious Diseases Society of America guidelines recommend that ideally, contamination rates not exceed 3%.1 Unfortunately false-positive rates exceed 6% in several scenarios,1,2 resulting in approximately 1.2 million false-positive results annually and costing the US healthcare system roughly $4 billion.3

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References

1. Baron EJ, Miller JM, Weinstein MP, et al. A guide to utilization of the microbiology laboratory for diagnosis of infectious diseases: 2013 recommendations by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the American Society for Microbiology (ASM)(a). Clin Infect Dis 2013;57:e22-e121.
 
2. Hall KK, Lyman JA. Updated review of blood culture contamination. Clin Microbiol Rev 2006;19:788-802.
 
3. Bates DW, Goldman L, Lee TH. Contaminant blood cultures and resource utilization. The true consequences of false-positive results. JAMA 1991;265:365-369.
 
4. Alahmadi YM, Aldeyab MA, McElnay JC, et al. Clinical and economic impact of contaminated blood cultures within the hospital setting. J Hosp Infect 2011;77:233-236.
 
5. Coburn B, Morris AM, Tomlinson G, et al. Does this adult patient with suspected bacteremia require blood cultures? JAMA 2012;308:502-511.
 
6. Souvenir D, Anderson DE Jr, Palpant S, et al. Blood cultures positive for coagulase-negative staphylococci: antisepsis, pseudobacteremia, and therapy of patients. J Clin Microbiol 1998;36:1923-1926.