Clinical evaluation of a lysis-centrifugation technique for the detection of septicemia

A commercially available lysis-centrifugation blood culture system was compared with a two-bottle broth-culture system employing 100 mL of broth and 10 mL of blood per bottle to analyze 1,913 blood specimens. Of 154 clinically significant isolates, 89% were detected by the lysis-centrifugation technique, and 73% were detected by the broth-culture method. Twenty-seven percent of the organisms were detected only by the lysis-centrifugation technique, and 11% were detected only by the broth system. Fifteen polymicrobial cultures were encountered; the lysis-centrifugation technique detected 93% of the organisms in these cultures, while the broth-culture method detected only 20%. Isolated colonies of clinically important organisms were available 30 hours earlier with the lysis-centrifugation technique. These results suggest that the lysis-centrifugation technique may provide a substantial improvement over conventional methods for blood cultures.