Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1992 Oct;30(10):2743-5.
doi: 10.1128/jcm.30.10.2743-2745.1992.

Time to detection of positive BacT/Alert blood cultures and lack of need for routine subculture of 5- to 7-day negative cultures

D J Hardy  1 , B B Hulbert, P C Migneault
Affiliations

Time to detection of positive BacT/Alert blood cultures and lack of need for routine subculture of 5- to 7-day negative cultures

D J Hardy et al. J Clin Microbiol. 1992 Oct.

Abstract

Consecutive BacT/Alert blood cultures which were instrument negative following a 7-day incubation were subcultured. Eighteen (0.2%) of 11,476 bottles had growth on subculture. Eleven of these eighteen isolates were considered contaminants on the basis of the identity of the organism and lack of other positive blood cultures from the same patient. In addition, analysis of time to instrument detection for approximately 2,900 positive blood cultures indicates that 5 or 6 days of incubation is sufficient for the routine detection of clinically significant organisms from BacT/Alert blood cultures. These data indicate that subculture of 5- to 7-day instrument-negative BacT/Alert blood culture bottles is not necessary.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. J Clin Microbiol. 1978 Oct;8(4):427-30 - PubMed
    1. J Clin Microbiol. 1992 Feb;30(2):323-9 - PubMed
    1. J Clin Microbiol. 1990 Jul;28(7):1608-12 - PubMed
    1. Rev Infect Dis. 1983 Jan-Feb;5(1):35-53 - PubMed
    1. J Clin Microbiol. 1980 Oct;12(4):576-8 - PubMed