Real-world Time to Positivity of 2 Widely Used Commercial Blood Culture Systems in Patients With Severe Manifestations of Sepsis: An Analysis of the FABLED Study.
Guillaume Butler-LaporteCedric P YansouniKatryn PaquetteAlexander LawandiSarah N StablerMurtaza AkhterAdam C DavidsonMarko GavricRehman JinahZahid SaeedKoray DemirSassan SangsariKelly HuangAmirali MahpourChris ShamatutuChelsea CayaJean-Marc TroquetGreg ClarkTitus WongTodd C LeeRobert StenstromDavid SweetMatthew P ChengPublished in: Open forum infectious diseases (2020)
In this large prospective multi-centre study comparing the two blood culture systems among patients with severe manifestations of sepsis, and using a rigorous pre-analytical methodology, the BACTEC system yielded positive culture results 4.5 hours earlier than BacT/Alert. These results apply to commonly isolated bacteria. However, our study design did not allow direct comparison of TTP for unusual pathogens nor of clinical sensitivity between systems. More research is needed to determine the clinical implications of this finding.