Impact of delays to incubation and storage temperature on blood culture results: a multi-centre study

BMC Infectious Diseases

Table 2 Overall number of positive blood cultures obtained for different storage conditions, compared with no delay; and number of BacT/ALERT® bottle sensors that indicated growth prior to incubation

Time (h)	Temp (°C)	Bottles (n)	Positive (n)^a	Positive (%)	P value^c	Sensor positive^d
0	NA	90	80	88.9	NA	0/25
6	25 °C	90	85	94.4	0.281	0/25
6	Cool-box	90	81	90.0	1.000	0/25
6	40 °C	90	74	82.2	0.289	0/25
12	25 °C	90	76	84.4	0.511	0/25
12	Cool-box	89^b	80	89.9	1.000	0/25
12	40 °C	90	77	85.6	0.656	15/25
24	25 °C	90	82	91.1	0.805	20/25
24	Cool-box	90	71	78.9	0.104	20/25
24	40 °C	90	59	65.6	< 0.001	20/25
6	All	270	240	88.9	1.000	0/75
12	All	269^b	233	86.6	0.787	15/75
24	All	270	212	78.5	0.030	60/75
All	25 °C	270	243	90.0	0.841	20/75
All	Cool-box	269^b	232	86.2	0.694	20/75
All	40 °C	270	210	77.8	0.021	35/75

^aFor automated systems this is the number of bottles that flagged positive, and for manual systems this is the number of bottles that were positive on sub-culture; ^bOne bottle excluded due to contamination; ^cCompared with no delay; ^dSensor positive if BacT/ALERT® bottle sensor indicated growth prior to incubation. NA Not applicable

ISSN: 1471-2334