Infect Chemother.
2007 Jun;39(3):111-116.
Blood Cultures: Principles and Practices
- Affiliations
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- 1Department of Internal Medicine, Inje University College of Medicine, Busan, Korea. kimbn@sanggyepaik.ac.kr
Abstract
- Blood cultures are the gold standard for diagnosing bloodstream infections and identifying causative organisms. Every effort should be made to improve diagnostic yield, and obtained results should be interpreted cautiously in the context of clinical findings. In this review, several issues of clinical relevance with regard to blood culturing are addressed; these issues include indications, skin antisepsis, timing and number of blood cultures, volume of obtained, and interpretation of positive blood culture results.