Sampling practices determine the accuracy of blood culture in diagnosing bloodstream infection. Our main acute hospital introduced aerobic-only routine blood cultures aiming to increase the volume and number of aerobic samples. At a smaller acute site aerobicanaerobic pairs were sent routinely. We compared culture yield and sampling practices at these two sites and found anaerobic cultures increased the yield of pathogens including facultative anaerobes. Volume cultured and number of samples sent fell short of national recommendations. The aerobic-only policy did not result in more blood being cultured. based on these findings we are reintroducing aerobic-anaerobic pairs for routine culture.
Supplemental items Click here to download Supplemental items: Lancet-author-signatures-amoeba.pdf Manuscript A 40 year old British man presented to a London hospital with 5 days of fever and right upper quadrant pain, with no diarrhoea. He had travelled extensively across Asia and South America 10 years previously, with travel to Germany in the past year. His partner and two children were asymptomatic. Vital signs were normal, temperature was 36.6ºC, and examination demonstrated right upper quadrant tenderness. Admission bloods showed a mild leucocytosis with neutrophilia (
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