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Sputum color: potential implications for clinical practice.

Allen L Johnson1, David F Hampson, Neil B Hampson

  • 1The Polyclinic, Seattle, WA, USA.

Respiratory Care
|March 28, 2008
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Sputum color can guide respiratory infection diagnosis. Clear, white, or cream sputum yields low results in lab testing, potentially reducing unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions.

Area of Science:

  • Clinical microbiology
  • Diagnostic pathology
  • Infectious disease

Background:

  • Respiratory infections with sputum are common reasons for medical visits and antibiotic use.
  • Sputum color is a simple characteristic that may impact diagnostic testing and antibiotic prescription.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To determine if sputum color provides useful information for resource utilization in diagnosing respiratory infections.
  • To assess the impact of sputum color on laboratory testing and antibiotic prescription.

Main Methods:

  • Out-patient sputum samples were categorized into 8 colors using a paint chip key.
  • Gram stain and culture results were compared against sputum color for 289 samples.

Main Results:

Related Experiment Videos

  • Only 50% of samples met Gram-stain criteria for acceptable lower-respiratory-tract specimens.
  • Sputum colors green, yellow-green, yellow, and rust showed a higher yield of organisms compared to cream, white, or clear.
  • Overall yield from bacteriologic analysis was low (15%).

Conclusions:

  • Cream, white, or clear sputum has a very low yield for bacteriologic analysis.
  • Sputum color can inform decisions to reduce laboratory processing costs.
  • Utilizing sputum color can help minimize unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions for respiratory infections.