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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, February 2001, p. 622-624, Vol. 39, No. 2
Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, Duke
University Medical Center,1 and
Departments of Pathology and Medicine, Duke University School
of Medicine,6 Durham, North Carolina
27710; Microbiology Laboratory, Robert Wood Johnson University
Hospital,2 and Departments of
Medicine3 and
Pathology,4 University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical
School, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901; and Department of
Pathology, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Salt Lake City, Utah
841485
Received 10 July 2000/Returned for modification 16 October
2000/Accepted 6 December 2000
Yeasts are an increasingly common cause of nosocomial bloodstream
infections. Methods for their detection are many; controlled comparisons are few. The vented FAN aerobic blood culture medium has
been shown to be superior to the standard BacT/ALERT aerobic medium for
the detection of fungemia as well as bacteremia. The BACTEC selective
fungal medium (FM) (BD Biosciences, Sparks, Md.) allowed detection of
more episodes of fungemia than did a resin-containing medium with equal
volumes of blood cultured. Therefore, we compared vented FAN to FM for
the ability to recover fungi from the blood of patients who were at
increased risk of having fungemia. From 5,109 cultures processed for
which both FAN and FM bottles were adequately filled, fungi were
recovered from 87 cultures. Of these, 47 were detected with both
bottles, 12 were detected with FAN only, and 28 were detected with FM
only (P < 0.05). FAN was the first bottle positive
for 36 of the 47 cultures for which both bottles yielded the same
fungus, whereas the FM bottle was the first bottle positive for 11 cultures (P < 0.001). A total of 54 episodes of
fungemia were identified, with 40 detected by both media, 4 detected
only by FAN, and 10 detected only by FM (P value, not
significant). We conclude that the vented FAN aerobic bottle is
comparable to the FM bottle for detection of episodes of yeast infection but has the added benefit of detecting bacteria.
0095-1137/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JCM.39.2.622-624.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Controlled Comparison of BacT/ALERT FAN Aerobic
Medium and BACTEC Fungal Blood Culture Medium for Detection
of Fungemia
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Clinical
Microbiology Laboratory, Duke University Medical Center, Box 2902, Durham, NC 27710. Phone: (919) 684-2562. Fax: (919) 684-8519. E-mail: stanley.mirrett{at}duke.edu.
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