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Comparison of detection speed and yield in BACTEC NR‐860® and Roche BCB® blood culture systems
Author(s) -
ARPI MAGNUS,
BREMMELGAARD ANNIE
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
apmis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0903-4641
DOI - 10.1111/j.1699-0463.1993.tb00144.x
Subject(s) - blood culture , microbiology and biotechnology , medicine , fungemia , inoculation , significant difference , veterinary medicine , biology , immunology , antibiotics , antifungal
Detection speed and yield were compared between BACTEC NR‐860® and Roche BCB® blood culture systems. From a total of 1,550 paired blood cultures inoculated with the same volume of blood, 161 (10.4%) grew 180 organisms from 140 adult patients. Sixty‐six percent of the isolates were clinically significant. The BACTEC® system detected more clinically significant isolates than the BCB® system, 91% vs 76% (p < 0.01), especially Enterobacteriaceae. In 39 paired blood cultures, 42 significant organisms were detected at different times in the two systems. The vast majority (93%) were detected first (on average 1 day faster) by the BACTEC® system (p < 0.05), especially Escherichia coli and streptococci. Generally, detection times were shorter in the BACTEC® system. Three fourths (76%) of all significant organisms were detected within the first incubation day as compared to less than half (42%) in the BCB® system (p < 0.001). Generally, the agitated aerobic resin medium BACTEC 26 Plus® had the fastest detection and highest yield in our study. The contamination rate, below 2% in both systems, was acceptable. The BACTEC NR‐860® system with resin‐containing media proved to be a reliable, sensitive and fast blood culture system, which deserves further investigation.