Comparison of conventional and revised isolator blood culture tubes.

A paired clinical study compared bacterial and fungal recovery from 4,553 blood cultures processed by the conventional Isolator (Du Pont Co.) and a revised Isolator consisting of a single-stoppered, round-bottom tube containing the same ingredients as the conventional tube except for an inert fluorochemical. Excluding contaminants, there were 425 positive blood cultures with 450 isolates representing 208 patients. There were no statistically significant differences between systems in the number of positive cultures or patients with positive cultures for each organism group studied, nor were there any statistically significant differences between systems in the time required for detection of positive cultures.