Abstract

Background: To diagnose bacteremia blood culture still remains the gold standard despite its limitations. While collecting samples, focus must be given that there is strong association between timing of specimen collection at different time points during admission and their yield.
Methods: A retrospective observational study was carried out by analyzing 100 positive blood cultures from April 2021-April2022. All positive blood culture and sensitivity reports of males and females aged less than one month to 60years were included. A total of 100 positive blood culture cases were taken from the culture and sensitivity register from Microbiology department of Hindu Rao Hospital and details were tabulated using a questionnaire.
Results: The commonest organism found on cultures was Coagulase Positive Staphylococcus (CONS) 34% of the cultures, this was followed by Actinobacter in 17% and Klebsiella pneumoniae in 11% of the culture samples. The most common fungi were Candida in 3% and Budding Yeast which was found in 2% of the samples. The most sensitive antibiotic was Gentamycin (27) which was sensitive for Coagulase-positive SA (12), K. pneumoniae (5), Actinobacter (5), S. typhi (3), E. coli (1) and P. aeuroginosa (1). The second most sensitive antibiotic was Vancomycin (20), which was sensitive for Coagulase-positive SA (9), Enterococcus (4), Methicillin resistant coagulase-positive SA (2), Methicillin sensitive SA (2), Actinobacter (1), MRSA (1), and S. aureus (1).
Conclusion: Positive blood culture is a crucial parameter for both the diagnosis of the patient as well as the associated prognosis, the correct interpretation of the blood culture results is essential. While planning treatment the sensitivity and resistance pattern of pathogens found in blood culture to common antimicrobial agents must be taken into account.