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Contamination of catheter-drawn blood cultures
R J Everts1, E N Vinson, P O Adholla
1Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA.
Journal of Clinical Microbiology
|August 30, 2001
Abstract:
To assess the risk of contamination, we reviewed retrospectively 1,408 matched pairs of simultaneous catheter-drawn and venipuncture blood cultures. Catheter-drawn cultures were equally likely to be truly positive (14.4 versus 13.7%) but more likely to be contaminated (3.8 versus 1.8% [P = 0.001]). Direct venipuncture cultures are preferred.