Abstract
Objectives
To describe the most frequent bacteria isolated from blood cultures in a tertiary care hospital. To compare these results with international scientific publications regarding blood culture isolation patterns.
Methods
A descriptive study was performed based on the analysis of 5174 blood cultures from adult hospitalized patients and Emergency Department’s patients in the Hospital San Juan de Dios, which were reported by the Division of Microbiology of this medical center in the period from May to October of 2009.
Results
A total of 1059 blood cultures were reported as positive for any organism (20%). Staphylococcus aureus was the most frequently isolated microorganism (12,72%). Coagulase-negative Staphylococcus were identified as major contaminants reported in false-positive blood cultures, from which Staphylococcus epidermidis (14,11%) was the most important isolated microorganism.
Conclusions
Staphylococcus aureus was the most frequently isolated microorganism in the study group. Conversely, most recent publications report coagulase-negative Staphylococcus as the main isolated microorganism in blood cultures; whereas these type of Staphylococcus were identified as the most common contaminants reported in false-positive blood cultures in the current study