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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, March 2007, p. 816-821, Vol. 45, No. 3
0095-1137/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.02064-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Comparison of BACTEC PLUS Blood Culture Media to BacT/Alert FA Blood Culture Media for Detection of Bacterial Pathogens in Samples Containing Therapeutic Levels of Antibiotics

Diane Flayhart,^2, Anita P. Borek,² Teresa Wakefield,² James Dick,^1,2 and Karen C. Carroll^1,2*

The Division of Microbiology, Department of Pathology, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,¹ The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Microbiology Laboratory, Baltimore, Maryland 21287²

Received 6 October 2006/ Returned for modification 14 November 2006/ Accepted 5 December 2006

Blood culture bottles with antimicrobial removal systems are recommended for patients who develop fever while on antibiotics. This study compared the ability of Becton Dickinson (Sparks, MD) BACTEC PLUS bottles and bioMerieux (Durham, NC) BacT/Alert FA bottles to effectively remove vancomycin, cefoxitin, ceftriaxone, cefepime, piperacillin-tazobactam, ampicillin, oxacillin, gentamicin, and a combination of gentamicin/penicillin, thus allowing bacterial pathogens to grow. Each bottle was spiked with 10 ml of human blood, antibiotic, and strains of organisms susceptible to the antibiotic evaluated. The organisms used were type strains and clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus (methicillin susceptible and resistant), Streptococcus pneumoniae, a viridans streptococcus, Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium, Streptococcus agalactiae, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Testing was completed in triplicate, using 10 to 100 CFU/ml of organisms with various concentrations of each antibiotic. Two rounds of testing were completed per antibiotic/organism combination. Bottles were mixed and loaded onto their respective instruments as per the manufacturer's instructions. Antimicrobial removal was evaluated on the basis of time to detection of organism growth, for up to 5 days of incubation. Overall, the BacT/Alert FA system recovered 25.1% of strains from test bottles and 96.9% of strains from growth control bottles (no antibiotic added), and the BACTEC PLUS system recovered 95.1% of strains from test bottles and 100% of strains from growth control bottles. Both systems performed well in the detection of Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the presence of gentamicin. In the presence of ceftriaxone, neither system was able to recover Streptococcus pneumoniae. The ability to remove vancomycin and cefoxitin was also determined by measuring antibiotic levels remaining in bottles after 1 h of incubation. The results demonstrated remaining levels of 72 to 90% of vancomycin and 71 to 72% of cefoxitin in the BacT/Alert system. For the BACTEC system, remaining levels were 0 to 30% of vancomycin and 0% of cefoxitin. Under these simulated conditions, the BACTEC PLUS system was superior to the BacT/Alert FA system in recovering gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial pathogens in the presence of ß-lactam antibiotics, gentamicin/penicillin, and vancomycin.

Published ahead of print on 13 December 2006.

Present address: BD Diagnostics, Inc., 7 Loveton Circle, Sparks, MD 21152-0999.