Best Practices for Detection of Bloodstream Infection

Each year in the US and Europe, an estimated 750000 and 12 patients, respectively, develop a bloodstream infection (BSI) with a bacterial or fungal pathogen (1, 2). Given the high mortality associated with sepsis, detection of BSIs is one of the most important functions of the clinical microbiology laboratory.A delay in therapy for a BSI is independently associated with worse outcomes (1, 2). In the setting of BSI, it is essential to establish the etiology of infection and the antimicrobial resistance profile of the infecting agent to optimize antimicrobial therapy. Given the clinical …