ArticleJournal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association2026
Revisiting time to blood culture positivity: can we decrease antibiotic exposure in the NICU?
Article in Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Important considerations in interpreting neonatal blood culture time-to-positivity.Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association · 2026Article
- Revisiting time to blood culture positivity: can we decrease antibiotic exposure in the NICU?Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveWe aimed to investigate the time to positivity of blood cultures in our NICU to determine if we can better inform empiric antibiotic duration decisions in both early-onset (≤72 h) and late-onset (>72 h) sepsis evaluations. STUDY
designRetrospective review of all positive blood cultures isolated from infants admitted to the Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital NICU from July 1, 2018 to July 1, 2023.
resultThere were 264 positive blood cultures from 125 infants with a median postmenstrual age of 30.9 weeks. The vast majority (86%) of positive cultures were obtained during the late-onset sepsis period. Gram-negative bacteria grew faster than gram-positive bacteria. Overall, 84% of blood cultures for all pathogenic bacteria (excluding coagulase-negative staph, fungi, and likely contaminants) were positive by 24 h.
conclusionOur data do not support discontinuing empiric antibiotics at 24 h as our a priori target of 90% positivity was not met. These results underline the importance of evaluating an individual NICU's data before implementing a practice change.
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Registered trials
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