Rapid culture and identification: a practical method for early preliminary laboratory diagnosis of sepsis

ABSTRACTThis study describes the development of a method for rapid preliminary species identification of bacteria from positive blood culture vials. The method yielded preliminary identification results for 496 (92%) of 541 positive blood cultures within 5 h. The method was capable of identifying the most frequently isolated bacteria (i.e., Staphylococcus aureus, coagulase-negative staphylococci, Escherichia coli, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Enterococcus spp.) to the species level. The method can be established easily, with a materials cost of 2–5 Euros per sample.