Evaluation of two vacuum bottle blood culture media--supplemented peptone broth and brain heart infusion broth.

A new blood culture medium (brain heart infusion broth) (BHI) from Terumo was compared with a commonly used blood culture medium, supplemented peptone broth (Becton Dickinson) (SPB). Blood from patients with suspected bacteraemia was simultaneously cultured in the two media, approximately five ml of blood in each bottle. Both bottles were incubated aerobically at 37 degrees C for 7 days. A total of 3724 paired blood cultures (sets) were processed. Altogether 340 (9.1%) of the blood culture sets were positive. Of these, 233 were positive in both media, 51 in the SPB medium only and 56 in the BHI medium only. Despite the similar overall results, Streptococcus spp. and anaerobic bacteria were detected more frequently in the SPB bottles and Enterobacteriaceae more frequently in the BHI bottles.