A blood culture system was developed in which a lysing agent (either Tween 20, one of several other polyoxyethylene adducts, digitonin, or Triton X-100) is added to the blood culture medium. Of 33 Triton compounds, 9 lysed human blood, as did 7 of 21 polyoxyethylene compounds and digitonin, all at a concentration of 0.05%. Under the specific test conditions, three of the hemolytic polyoxyethyle...

AIMS To evaluate the adequacy of documentation of blood culture results in patients' medical notes. METHODS A pro-forma was completed following review of medical notes at 24 and 48 hours after a blood culture had been reported as positive. The study was performed on blood cultures received at the Department of Microbiology, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, from two local hospitals. Two ...

Spiral filaments seen in the blood cultures of two patients with fever and jaundice were initially thought to be leptospires; these were later proved to be artefacts. An investigation was carried out to exclude the possibility of laboratory contamination of the culture media and to find out how these objects were produced. The significance of the findings is discussed in relation to the possibi...

background the prognostic value of blood culture testing in the diagnosis of bacteremia is limited by contamination. objectives in this multicenter study, the aim was to evaluate the contamination rates of blood cultures as well as the parameters that affect the culture results. materials and methods sample collection practices and culture data obtained from 16 university/research hospitals wer...

allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is used in the treatment of patients suffering from hematologic and non-hematologic disorders, but the application is limited by the identification of a suitable donor. umbilical cord blood (ucb) is an alternative source of hematopoietic stem cell (hsc) transplantation. despite all advantages, the limited cell dose is one of the  major obstacle...

background and objectives: coagulase negative staphylococcus (cons) is frequently isolated from blood cultures but their significance is difficult to interpret. cons bacteria which are often previously dismissed as culture contaminants are attracting greater importance as true pathogens in the past decades. clinical evaluation of these isolates suggests that although there is a relative increas...