Efficiency of blood culture medium in isolating bacterial pathogens: results of blood culture specimens of 980 patients

One of the most frequent samples sent to the laboratory for the diagnosis and isolation of the pathogen is a blood specimen, which takes a lot of time and long-term incubation. In order to evaluate the efficiency of the current culture method and determine the frequency and diversity of isolated bacteria, this study was conducted on 980 patients admitted to some university hospitals.
Collected specimens varied from one to three samples for each patient. Overall, an average specimens tested was of 2.28 samples for the patients. Blood cultures were positive in 40 patients, of which a total of 56 bacterial organisms were isolated. The most frequent isolated bacteria were Salmonella typhi (35%) and the least isolated ones were Klebsiella and Pneumococcus (5%). Other isolated bacteria were E. coli (25%), Coagulase negative staphylococcus (15%), S. aureus and Enterobacter (7.5%). Thirty percent of patients had two and three positive culture out off the total positive blood culture reported. The rest of 70% patients had just one positive culture, and none of them was registered as a contamination by the laboratories.