ArticleBMC infectious diseases2025
Multiyear experience with blood culture results from a tertiary care hospital in Saudi Arabia: a retrospective study.
Article in BMC infectious diseases, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundBloodstream infections (BSI) are a significant etiology of morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients, particularly among critically ill patients in intensive care units (ICU). ICU patients are at a higher risk of BSI due to invasive procedures, prolonged hospitalization, and the prevalence of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs). Blood culture remains the gold standard for diagnosing BSI and its associated resistance pattern. However, contamination during sample collection often limits its utility, and diagnostic accuracy leading to unnecessary antibiotic use, prolonged stay in the ICU, and increased healthcare costs. Understanding trends in blood culture contamination rates and factors associated with BSI in ICU patients is vital for optimizing infection control measures and antimicrobial stewardship programs. This study aims to analyze blood culture contamination rates and explore ICU-associated factors influencing BSI at a tertiary hospital.
methodsThis three-year retrospective study (2018,2022,2023) analyzed 27,544 blood culture samples from a tertiary hospital. Data were retrieved from the medical record system and included bacterial identification and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns. The contaminated blood culture rates over years were calculated and factors associated with BSI among ICU patients in 2022 and 2023 were analyzed using the Chi-square test.
resultsThe study revealed a decrease in the contamination rate between 2018, 2022, and 2023 with a result of 6.3%, 3.7%, and 4.2%, respectively. Patients' age and hospital wards are the variables associated with the contaminated blood culture. Factors associated with positive blood culture for the ICU admissions in 2022 and 2023, included patient age, results of Gram stain, identified bacteria, resistance pattern, and length of stay. Gram-negative bacteria predominated in positive blood culture with Klebsiella spp. being the most frequently isolated organism across all the studied years. ESBL-producing bacteria remained the most common resistance pattern throughout the study period.
conclusionsThis study reports a reduction in blood culture contamination rates during the studied years, suggesting improvement in clinical practices related to sample collection and microbiological techniques. However, the persistent predominance of ESBL-producing bacteria and Klebsiella spp. indicates the urgent need for further enhanced antimicrobial stewardship programs to combat antimicrobial resistance. Further national studies should focus on hospital-wide interventions to reduce contamination and improve patient outcomes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.