J Lab Med Qual Assur 2015; 37(1): 23-28
Published online March 31, 2015
https://doi.org/10.15263/jlmqa.2015.37.1.23
Copyright © Korean Association of External Quality Assessment Service.
Soon Deok Park, Young Uh, In Ho Jang, Maria Hong, Hyeun Gyeo Lee, Kwan Soo Lee, and Dong Hyun Lee
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Wonju Severance Christian Hospital, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine, Wonju, Korea
Correspondence to:Soon Deok Park
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Wonju Severance Christian Hospital, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine, 20 Ilsan-ro, Wonju 220-701, Korea
Tel: +82-33-741-1578
Fax: +82-33-731-0506
E-mail: mizpark66@naver.com
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Background: Invasive and life-threatening infections such as meningitis, pericarditis, peritonitis, empyema, and septic arthritis are diagnosed via culture of relevant body fluids (BFs). The blood culture system (BCS) has been reported to be a useful alternative for BFs culture to enhance recovery of fastidious microorganisms and reduce detection time. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of BCS as compared to conventional culture method (CCM) in terms of culture yield. Methods: The samples collected between October 2011 and September 2012 were processed using CCM, while those collected between October 2012 and September 2013 were processed using BCS. The 2 processes were compared in terms of total number of requests, recovery rate, turnaround time (TAT), and detection time. Results: The positive rate using CCM was 18.2% (575/3,151), where 845 isolates were recovered from 575 specimens. Using BCS, the positive rate was 28.3% (922/3,260), where 1,472 isolates were recovered from 922 specimens. While comparing the 2 methods on terms of yield of clinically significant isolates, a greater number of fungi (1.2%) and anaerobic bacteria (1.4%) were recovered using BCS as compared to using CCM. The difference in TAT for positive samples was 24 hours and 40 minutes, where BCS had a shorter TAT than CCM. The mean detection time of 951 positive samples by BCS was 19 hours and 56 minutes. Growth of clinically significant isolates was detected within 24 hours. Conclusions: BCS for culture of BFs showed an improvement in recovery rate, number of isolates, and TAT as compared to CCM. Thus, BCS is a suitable alternative for culture of BFs. (J Lab Med Qual Assur 2015;37:23-28)
Keywords: Body fluids, Culture, Blood, Turnaround, Time, Detection
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