PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Surjo Kiran De AU - Nandini Shetty AU - Michael Kelsey TI - How to useā€¦ blood cultures AID - 10.1136/archdischild-2013-305197 DP - 2014 Aug 01 TA - Archives of disease in childhood - Education & practice edition PG - 144--151 VI - 99 IP - 4 4099 - http://ep.bmj.com/content/99/4/144.short 4100 - http://ep.bmj.com/content/99/4/144.full SO - Arch Dis Child Educ Pract Ed2014 Aug 01; 99 AB - Positive blood culture is the gold standard for diagnosing bacteraemia and fungaemia, yet there is significant variability in aspects of performing and interpreting the test in children and neonates. Processing a blood culture can take several days, and includes use of semi-automated incubation with growth detection and a broad range of laboratory techniques such as Gram staining, phenotypic or molecular identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing on a cultured isolate. Sensitivity and specificity of a blood culture and time-to-positivity depend on a number of factors related to host/pathogen interaction, collection and transport of the specimen to the laboratory and methods employed to process the specimen. Interpretation of a positive result relies on correlation of the identity of the cultured microorganism with the clinical assessment of the child.