DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2016.v04i07.059

Pages: 2584-2587

Presence of microbes in blood i.e. bacteremia carries high risk of morbidity and mortality. Blood cultures form a critical part of evaluation of patients with suspected sepsis. The present study was undertaken to study the effect of duration of incubation for obtaining positive cultures. A total of 220 samples from 107 pediatric patients presenting with suspected bacteraemia were processed aerobically. Cultures were positive in 24.3% of the samples. Most of the positive cultures (76.9%) were obtained after 24 hours of incubation of the broth and no isolates were obtained beyond day 4 of incubation. Incubation beyond four days (unless with specific indication like enteric fever) may be unnecessary for issuing a negative culture report.