Blood culture contamination creep – Full Text
“In a low-COVID-19-burden secondary care teaching hospital setting, blood culture contamination rates have progressively increased over the past decade, irrespective of the pandemic. These findings underscore the importance of sustained vigilance in infection prevention and control practices, strict adherence to blood culture collection protocols, and the ongoing need for staff training” Jeverica et al (2025).
Review of blood culture single-sampling strategy and initial specimen diversion – Full Text
“After combined implementation of SSS and initial specimen diversion (ISDT) in our region, we evaluated the proportion of sampling events with at least four bottles, with growth of relevant pathogens and with growth of coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) before and after the intervention” Oldberg et al (2025).
Management of a positive blood cultures
“There is considerable practice variation among ED physicians for the management of positive blood cultures in children across Canada. Incongruencies in the perceived impact of clinical factors on the likelihood of a true bacteremia, such as time-to-positivity, highlight the need for a standardized decision-making tool” Gouin et al (2025).
Impact of delayed blood culture transport time – Full Text
“There is a marginal loss of growth for every hour a blood culture is left unincubated, with the loss of recovery of Streptococcus pyogenes and other streptococci being most common. There was no evidence of a reduction in Gram-negatives, anaerobes, or yeasts” Deas et al (2025).
Blood culture bundle decreases blood culture contamination – Full Text
“We found that the blood culture bundle program was successful at decreasing the blood culture contamination, preventing additional hospital stay and treatment costs in the NICU” Çalkavur et al (2025).
Pediatric blood culture contamination rates
“Younger patient age and ED nurse blood cultures had greater odds of contamination. Results can inform focused training on quality collection and testing techniques, as well as the creation of enhanced staffing models to increase phlebotomist collections” Childress et al (2025).
Blood culture standard operating procedure compliance
“Our study highlights how educational interventions can influence quality of BC. Continuous monitoring and interventions are key for quality improvement in BC processes” Fernandes et al (2025).
Follow-up blood cultures in gram-negative bloodstream infections – Full Text
“In this review, we aim to evaluate the strengths and limitations of the most significant studies on FUBCs in GN-BSIs, proposing a more personalized approach for using FUBCs in GN-BSIs” Tziolos and Kofteridis (2025).
Blood culture diagnostic stewardship model – Full Text
“The medical community recently experienced a severe shortage of blood culture media bottles. Rates of blood stream infection (BSI) among critically ill children are low. We sought to design a machine learning (ML) model able to identify children at low risk for BSI to improve blood culture diagnostic stewardship” Martin et al (2025).
Indicators for positive blood culture detection – Full Text
“Laboratory analytical indicators such as patient source, transportation mode, and personnel rotation significantly impacted the positive detection rate or time of blood culture” Wang et al (2025).
Blood culture contamination study – Full Text
“We define a contaminated BC as the growth of a typical contaminant/skin flora in 1-2/4 BC bottles. We calculate BCC rates as a percentage of the contaminated BC/total BC during the period and BCU rates as the number of BC/1000 patient days (PD)” Saleh et al (2025).
Algorithm to reduce blood culture false positives
“Overusing blood cultures (BCxs) can lead to false positives, unnecessary antibiotics, and increased healthcare costs. Despite studies on inpatient BCx algorithms, none have focused on cardiothoracic surgery (CTS) patients, with complex postoperative care and invasive devices” Seidelman et al (2024).
Standardizing blood culture collection
“CDC developed this quality measure to promote the standardization of blood culture best practices and improve laboratory diagnosis of bloodstream infections nationally. This special report will emphasize the importance of standardizing blood culture collection and describe the need for a national patient safety measure, new quality tools, and next steps” Bunn and Cornish (2025).
Assessment of blood culture initial specimen diversion device – Full Text
“A model to simulate CVC colonization and contamination compared standard cultures with ISDD technique. ISDD detected 100% of colonized CVCs while decreasing false-positive cultures from 36% to 16%” Rupp et al (2024).
Dealing with a national blood culture bottle shortage – Full Text
“Within three weeks of the BC bottle shortage announcement, we successfully deployed evidence-based BC restrictions in the electronic medical record (EMR), reducing our BC orders by 29.5%” Butt et al (2024).
Contaminated blood culture case study – Full Text
“This case highlights the risks associated with empiric antibiotic treatment of patients with suspected bacteremia, the implications associated with improper blood culture collection technique leading to false positive results, and the importance of interpreting a laboratory result within the context of the patient’s clinical status rather than relying solely on Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS) criteria” Ordookhanian et al (2024).
Value of time to positivity in blood cultures – Full Text
“Time to positivity (TTP) refers to the duration required for a microbiological culture test to indicate a positive result, marking the onset of detectable bacterial or fungal growth in the sample. Numerous variables, including patient characteristics, infection source, former antimicrobial therapy, blood sample volume, and sample transportation time can influence the value of TTP” Maffezzoli et al (2024).
Reducing blood culture contamination – Full Text
“The study demonstrated a substantial reduction in blood culture contamination rates through targeted interventions, highlighting the efficacy of combining evidence-based strategies with interdisciplinary teamwork to improve patient care outcomes” Eisenberg et al (2024).
Guidelines to reduce blood culture contamination – Full Text
“Our evidence-based systematic review and meta-analysis support several interventions to effectively reduce BCC by approximately 40%-60%. However, devices alone without an education/training component and buy-in from key stakeholders to implement various interventions would not be as effective in reducing BCC rates” Sautter et al (2024).
Impact of inappropriate central line blood cultures
“The infectious diseases service was consulted for possible catheter related bloodstream infection (CRBSI). The consultant determined that the risk of CRBSI was low because the tunneled line was nontender without surrounding erythema or drainage, and the patient had a known alternative source of infection” Fuher et al (2024).
BSI in children and role of repeat blood cultures
“Repeat blood cultures are common in children after an initial positive culture. However, in contrast to adults, there are little data to help guide clinicians when a repeat culture is necessary to assess for persistent bacteremia. This study identifies factors associated with persistent bloodstream infections (BSI) in children to inform diagnostic stewardship” Puthawala et al (2024).
Blood culture volume in infants with suspected neonatal sepsis
“To evaluate blood culture sample volumes, identify factors linked to insufficient samples, and compare volumes among neonates treated for culture-negative-sepsis, sepsis-rule-outs, and bloodstream infections (BSI)” Rueda et al (2024).
Time-to-positivity for Candida bloodstream infections – Full Text
“This study highlights the prognostic value of TTP in Candida-associated bloodstream infections, with shorter TTP correlating with higher mortality” Balaji et al (2024).
Impact of central venous catheter drawn blood cultures on patient management – Full Text
“Many episodes of positive catheter-drawn blood cultures with concomitant negative percutaneously-drawn cultures lead to growth from percutaneously-drawn follow-up blood cultures. Thus, such initial discordant results should not be disregarded. Our findings advocate for a nuanced approach to blood culture interpretation, emphasizing the value of catheter-drawn blood cultures in clinical decision making and management” Wales et al (2024).
Kurin Lock for blood culture collection – NICE guidance – Full Text
“Clinical trial evidence suggests that Kurin Lock is a safe and effective way of reducing blood culture contamination rates, compared with standard blood culture collection” NICE (2024).
Species identification in positive blood cultures – Full Text
“Direct species identification using the Sepsityper kit is an upcoming approach for blood culture bottles, which were flagged as positive even in patients with hematologic malignancies when the spectral score was ≥ 1.7” Watanabe et al (2024).
Blood cultures drawn from central venous catheters – Full Text
“We urge clinicians to obtain catheter-drawn blood cultures when the catheter may be the source of suspected infection” Mermel and Rupp (2024).
Blood cultures and time to positivity in children – Full Text
“An audit of positive blood cultures from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) from November 1, 2019, to October 31, 2020, was performed to determine TTP, defined as the start of incubation to a positive signal from automated incubators” Yeung et al (2024).
What is the effect of taurolidine on the time-to-positivity of blood cultures – Full Text
“In the presence of taurolidine, the TTP was considerably delayed or vials even remained negative as compared to vials containing heparin, citrate or NaCl. This effect was dose-dependent. The delayed TTP was much less pronounced in the presence of blood, but still notable” van den Bosch et al (2024).
Blood culture bottle fill volume – Full Text
“Therefore, it is crucial to fill a blood culture bottle with enough blood to maximize the detection of bacteremia. Current CLSI guidelines for adult blood culture collection recommend 2 sets, that is, 4 bottles of blood cultures, each filled with 10 mL of blood to maximize detection of bacteremia” Keller et al (2024).