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Infectious Disease • General Infectious Disease
How do you decide on the timing and number of blood cultures for suspected endocarditis given the differences in recommendations between the ESC guidelines and the Duke Criteria?
The ESC guidelines recommend obtaining at least three sets of blood cultures at 30-minute intervals before starting antibiotic therapy, each with 10 mL of blood, emphasizing specific timing and technique. The 2023 Duke ISCVID Criteria, however, focus on the isolation of typical or rare microorganisms in multiple sets of cultures for diagnostic significance and have removed strict timing and venipuncture requirements, emphasizing at least two blood culture sets for suspected bacteremia.
Answer from: at Academic Institution
Concern about differences in recommendations regarding specifics of blood culture collection between the two guidelines should be alleviated if one understands that these are guidelines, not dictates.
It would help to lay out general principles. First, the focus of infection in infective endocardit...
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Answer from: at Academic Institution
Thank you, Dr. Shrestha for the insightful comments. The ESC guidelines recommend obtaining at least three sets of blood cultures, each containing 10ml, and the rationale behind such recommendations is the data on the sensitivity of the blood culture sets. Studies in the 2000s showed that sampl...
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at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation
A challenge you could face if only two blood cultu...
A challenge you could face if only two blood cultu...