• Anne-Maree Kelly and Sharon Klim.
• Joseph Epstein Centre for Emergency Medicine Research at Western Health, Sunshine Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
• Emerg Med Australas. 2013 Oct 1;25(5):435-8.

ObjectiveIt has been suggested that blood cultures drawn from vascular catheters have a higher false positive rate than those drawn by venepuncture. In the face of institutionally imposed practice change prohibiting obtaining blood cultures from intravenous (i.v.) catheters in the ED, our aim of was to compare the rate of contaminated blood cultures between those taken from recently placed i.v. catheters and those taken by direct venepuncture.MethodProspective, non-randomised, observational study comparing the rate of contaminated blood cultures for specimens taken from recently placed (<1 h) i.v. catheters and direct venepuncture in adult ED patients. Outcome of interest was the rate of false positive cultures. Analysis was by comparison of proportions (χ(2) -test).ResultsFour hundred seventy-two blood culture sets were studied. There were 65 positive cultures, of which 49 (75%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 63-85%) were classified as true positive. The overall rate of contaminated blood cultures was 3.4% (95% CI, 2.0-5.6%). There was no difference in false positive rate between blood cultures taken via venepuncture and those taken from a recently placed i.v. cannula (P = 0.52; odds ratio, 0.9; 95% CI, 0.33-2.44).ConclusionWe found no difference in contaminated blood culture rate between recently placed i.v. catheters and direct venepuncture when infection control procedures were followed.© 2013 Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and Australasian Society for Emergency Medicine.

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