Reduced culture time and improved isolation rate through culture of sonicate fluid in blood culture bottles.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to investigate if the cultivation of sonicate fluid (SFC) in blood culture bottles (BCB) leads to a higher rate of bacterial isolations than agar plate culture (APC) and to investigate whether the utilization of BCB leads to a reduction in culture time.

METHODS

We performed a retrospective analysis of 206 revision total knee and total hip arthroplasty patients comparing the results of both synovial fluid culture and SFC in both BCB and conventional APC.

RESULTS

The use of BCB improved both the rate of positive bacterial isolations and reduced the culture time for synovial fluid as well as SFC. Fifty-one patients showed a bacterial isolation in SFC-APC and 101 in SFC-BCB. For synovial fluid 24 patients showed a bacterial isolation on APC and 37 showed a bacterial isolation in BCB. The synovial fluid cultures showed growth on APC after an average of 2.8 days vs. 1.8 days in BCB. The SFC-APC showed growth after an average of 4.2 days vs. 2.9 days for SFC-BCB.

CONCLUSIONS

The culture of synovial and sonicate fluid in BCB leads to more positive bacterial isolations and quicker bacterial growth than conventional agar plate cultures.