Blood cultures - how many sets? how many bottles?
So until last week I thought all microbiologists agreed that we should aspire to 2 sets of blood cultures. I now discover that some people not only think that 2 sets is overkill, they also are happy with just one bottle! There seems some doubt as to whether this should be the aerobic or anaerobic. Anyway, made me look at our data. I’m sure others have done likewise. Be interesting to combine experiences… Effect of multiple sets on positivity rate (significant growth only) So we now get 2 sets of blood cultures sent from the ED in about 20% of cases. And the second set does not add a huge amount of value. 90% of positive episodes in which 2 sets were taken were positive in both sets Taking a second set of cultures probably increases coliform detection by about 5-10% There was little effect on isolation of other significant organisms Bottle type and positivity Looking at all significant culture results, which bottles were positive? 674 / 1053 significant blood cultures w