[Positive blood cultures during a 2 years period at Hôspital cantonal de Fribourg]

Several authors, mainly from the United States, have reported on the microbiology and interpretation of positive blood cultures. We conducted a retrospective study over a 2 years period to address this issue in a medium-size swiss hospital: two hundred and thirty-two episodes of positive blood culture were recorded, with 403 microorganisms; Escherichia coli (22%), Staphylococcus aureus (21%) and coagulase-negative staphylococci (110%) were the most frequent isolates. The latter were considered as contaminants in 38% of cases. Half the episodes were nosocomial, 23% originated from the urinary tract and 18% were linked to a vascular catheter. Attributable mortality of bacteremia/fungemia was 9%, significantly higher for fungi (36%) than for bacteria (8%; p 0.009).