J Clin Pathol Qual Control.  1998 Jun;20(1):245-248.

A Study on Effectiveness of Stool Culture

• Park JS
• Uh Y
• Yoon KJ
• Shin DH

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Because of insensitivity for many organisms and poor selection of cases for testing, routine stool culture has been one of the most costly and ineffective microbiologic test. To assess the degree to which routine stool cultures may be inappropriately ordered on hospitalized patients, we conducted a retrospective study to determine the relative yield of these test on specimens collected from patients as a function of time after admission.
METHODS
We have retrospectively assessed the yield of stool cultures for Salmonella, Shigella, Vibrio, and Campylobacter species from inpatients and outpatients during the period of January to December 1997
RESULTS
Of 2,942 stool specimens, 64 (2.2%) contained a pathogen. The vast majority (93.8%) of bacterial pathogens were detected in specimen submitted until the third day of hospitalization. Almost 36.9% of specimens were collected after the third day of hospitalization, but only 0.36% of these specimens were positive for enteric pathogens. No enteric pathogens was revealed on specimen from patients more than 7 days of hospitalization.
CONCLUSIONS
We think that specimens from both adults and children in the hospital for more than 7 days could not be cultured unless there are delineated plausible clinical or epidemiological reasons to do so. Application of rejection criteria on routine stool cultures in hospitalized patients would significantly reduce hospital and patient costs without altering patient care.

MeSH Terms

Adult
Campylobacter
Child
Hospitalization
Humans
Inpatients
Outpatients
Patient Care
Retrospective Studies
Salmonella
Shigella
Vibrio