Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T02:30:13.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Effect of Clinical Variables on the Volume of Blood Collected for Blood Cultures in an Adult Patient Population

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2017

R. Logan Jones
Affiliation:
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska
Harlan R. Sayles
Affiliation:
Department of Biostatistics, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska
Paul D. Fey
Affiliation:
Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska
Mark E. Rupp*
Affiliation:
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska
*
Address correspondence to Mark E. Rupp, 985400 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198; ([email protected]).

Abstract

OBJECTIVE

To identify clinical variables that influence blood culture volume recovery

DESIGN

Retrospective chart review and linear model analysis

SETTING

A 621-bed Academic Medical Center with a Clinical Laboratory that processes 20,000+ blood cultures annually and dedicated phlebotomy staff for venipuncture

PATIENTS

Consecutive patients requiring blood culture

METHODS

Over a 6-day period, blood volume was determined in 568 culture bottles from 128 unique adult patients, and clinical data from the time of phlebotomy were extracted from hospital electronic medical records. Conditional hierarchical linear models with random effects for patient and phlebotomy occasion were utilized to analyze correlations between values collected from the same patient and during the same phlebotomy occasion.

RESULTS

Blood samples obtained from a central venous catheter yielded, on average, 2.53 mL more blood (95% CI, 1.63–3.44 mL; P<.001) than those from peripheral venipuncture, and aerobic bottles contained 0.38 mL more blood (95% CI, 0.1–0.67 mL; P=.009) than the anaerobic bottles. The remaining clinical variables (eg, hospital department, patient age, body mass index, gender, mean arterial pressure, concomitant systemic antibiotic use, and Charlson comorbidity index score) failed to reach statistical significance (P<.05) in relation to volume.

CONCLUSIONS

Blood cultures obtained from central venous catheters contain significantly greater volume than those obtained via peripheral venipuncture. These data highlight the clinically significant issue of low culture volume recovery, indicate that diagnostic and prognostic tools that rely on volume-dependent phenomena (ie, time to positivity) may require further validation under usual clinical practice circumstances, and suggest goals for future institutional performance improvement.

Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2017;38:1493–1497

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
© 2017 by The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. All rights reserved 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

PREVIOUS PRESENTATION: This work was presented as an abstract at IDWeek on October 26, 2016, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

References

REFERENCES

1. Bryan, CS. Clinical implications of positive blood cultures. Clin Microbiol Rev 1989;2:329353.Google Scholar
2. Hall, MM, Ilstrup, DM, Washington, JA 2nd. Effect of volume of blood cultured on detection of bacteremia. J Clin Microbiol 1976;3:643645.Google Scholar
3. Mermel, LA, Maki, DG. Detection of bacteremia in adults: consequences of culturing an inadequate volume of blood. Ann Intern Med 1993;119:270272.Google Scholar
4. Washington, JA 2nd, Ilstrup, DM. Blood cultures: Issues and controversies. Rev Infect Dis 1986;8:792802.Google Scholar
5. Bouza, E, Sousa, D, Rodriguez-Creixems, M, Lechuz, JG, Munoz, P. Is the volume of blood cultured still a significant factor in the diagnosis of bloodstream infections? J Clin Microbiol 2007;45:27652769.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. Alfa, M, Sanche, S, Roman, S, Fiola, Y, Lenton, P, Harding, G. Continuous quality improvement for introduction of automated blood culture instrument. J Clin Microbiol 1995;33:11851191.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
7. Meessen, N, Jacobs, J. Blood volume in BACTECPLUS/F culture bottles sampled using the direct-draw technique. Clin Microbiol Infect 1998;4:471472.Google Scholar
8. Weinstein, MP, Mirrett, S, Wilson, ML, Reimer, LG, Reller, LB. Controlled evaluation of 5 versus 10 milliliters of blood cultured in aerobic BacT/alert blood culture bottles. J Clin Microbiol 1994;32:21032106.Google Scholar
9. Plorde, JJ, Tenover, FC, Carlson, LG. Specimen volume versus yield in the BACTEC blood culture system. J Clin Microbiol 1985;22:292295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
10. Kim, SC, Kim, S, Lee, DH, Choi, SR, Kim, JS. Effect of blood volume in standard anaerobic blood culture bottles of the BacT/ALERT 3D system used for the detection of pathogens and time to detection. PLoS One 2015;10:e0116728.Google Scholar
11. Lin, HH, Liu, YF, Tien, N, Ho, CM, Hsu, LN, Lu, JJ. Evaluation of the blood volume effect on the diagnosis of bacteremia in automated blood culture systems. J Microbiol Immunol Infect 2013;46:4852.Google Scholar
12. Hall, KK, Lyman, JA. Updated review of blood culture contamination. Clin Microbiol Rev 2006;19:788802.Google Scholar
13. Bekeris, LG, Tworek, JA, Walsh, MK, Valenstein, PN. Trends in blood culture contamination: a College of American Pathologists Q-tracks study of 356 institutions. Arch Pathol Lab Med 2005;129:12221225.Google Scholar
14. Gonsalves, WI, Cornish, N, Moore, M, Chen, A, Varman, M. Effects of volume and site of blood draw on blood culture results. J Clin Microbiol 2009;47:34823485.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
15. Bates, DW, Goldman, L, Lee, TH. Contaminant blood cultures and resource utilization. the true consequences of false-positive results. JAMA 1991;265:365369.Google Scholar
16. Boyce, JM, Nadeau, J, Dumigan, D, et al. Obtaining blood cultures by venipuncture versus from central lines: impact on blood culture contamination rates and potential effect on central line-associated bloodstream infection reporting. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2013;34:10421047.Google Scholar
17. Quan, H, Sundararajan, V, Halfon, P, et al. Coding algorithms for defining comorbidities in ICD-9-CM and ICD-10 administrative data. Med Care 2005;43:11301139.Google Scholar
18. Quan, H, Li, B, Couris, CM, et al. Updating and validating the charlson comorbidity index and score for risk adjustment in hospital discharge abstracts using data from 6 countries. Am J Epidemiol 2011;173:676682.Google Scholar
19. Falagas, ME, Kazantzi, MS, Bliziotis, IA. Comparison of utility of blood cultures from intravascular catheters and peripheral veins: a systematic review and decision analysis. J Med Microbiol 2008;57:18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
20. Brown, DF, Warren, RE. Effect of sample volume on yield of positive blood cultures from adult patients with haematological malignancy. J Clin Pathol 1990;43:777779.Google Scholar
21. Ilstrup, DM, Washington, JA 2nd. The importance of volume of blood cultured in the detection of bacteremia and fungemia. Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis 1983;1:107110.Google Scholar
22. Baron, EJ, Miller, JM, Weinstein, MP, et al. A guide to utilization of the microbiology laboratory for diagnosis of infectious diseases: 2013 recommendations by the infectious diseases society of america (IDSA) and the american society for microbiology (ASM)(a). Clin Infect Dis 2013;57:e22e121.Google Scholar
23. Preventing central line–associated bloodstream infections: useful tools, an international perspective—tools directory. The Joint Commission website. http://www.jointcommission.org/assets/1/6/CLABSI_Toolkit_Tools_Directory_linked.pdf. Accessed October 23, 2017.Google Scholar
24. Blot, F, Schmidt, E, Nitenberg, G, et al. Earlier positivity of central-venous- versus peripheral-blood cultures is highly predictive of catheter-related sepsis. J Clin Microbiol 1998;36:105109.Google Scholar
25. Park, KH, Lee, MS, Lee, SO, et al. Diagnostic usefulness of differential time to positivity for catheter-related candidemia. J Clin Microbiol 2014;52:256625672.Google Scholar
26. Peralta, G, Rodriguez-Lera, MJ, Garrido, JC, Ansorena, L, Roiz, MP. Time to positivity in blood cultures of adults with streptococcus pneumoniae bacteremia. BMC Infect Dis 2006;6:79.Google Scholar
27. Peralta, G, Roiz, MP, Sanchez, MB, et al. Time-to-positivity in patients with Escherichia coli bacteraemia. Clin Microbiol Infect 2007;13:10771082.Google Scholar
28. Marra, AR, Edmond, MB, Forbes, BA, Wenzel, RP, Bearman, GM. Time to blood culture positivity as a predictor of clinical outcome of Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infection. J Clin Microbiol 2006;44:13421346.Google Scholar
29. Raad, I, Hanna, HA, Alakech, B, Chatzinikolaou, I, Johnson, MM, Tarrand, J. Differential time to positivity: a useful method for diagnosing catheter-related bloodstream infections. Ann Intern Med 2004;140:1825.Google Scholar
30. Nunes, CZ, Marra, AR, Edmond, MB, da Silva Victor, E, Pereira, CA. Time to blood culture positivity as a predictor of clinical outcome in patients with candida albicans bloodstream infection. BMC Infect Dis 2013;13:486.Google Scholar