Comparative clinical evaluation of the effect of sucrose in a new anaerobic blood culture medium.

In order to study the effect of excess sucrose on microorganisms, growth curves of 5 anaerobic and 5 aerobic microorganisms were performed in Diagnostic Anaerobic Growth (DAG) medium, and in a variant of DAG supplemented with 200 g/l sucrose (DAG-S). It was found that both aerobes and anaerobes were suppressed by the additional sucrose. In a clinical trial 1,800 blood cultures froms 1,332 patients were simultaneously inoculated into DAG and DAG-S. Results showed that excess sucrose did not improve the yield of anaerobic or aerobic microorganisms and rather tended to inhibit their growth. The only microorganisms which possibly benefitted from DAG-S were some Enterobacteriaceae species.