RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 How to use… blood cultures
JF Archives of disease in childhood - Education & practice edition
JO Arch Dis Child Educ Pract Ed
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
SP 144
OP 151
DO 10.1136/archdischild-2013-305197
VO 99
IS 4
A1 Surjo Kiran De
A1 Nandini Shetty
A1 Michael Kelsey
YR 2014
UL http://ep.bmj.com/content/99/4/144.abstract
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.