Contamination of catheter-drawn blood cultures

Abstract

To assess the risk of contamination, we reviewed retrospectively 1,408 matched pairs of simultaneous catheter-drawn and venipuncture blood cultures. Catheter-drawn cultures were equally likely to be truly positive (14.4 versus 13.7%) but more likely to be contaminated (3.8 versus 1.8% [P = 0.001]). Direct venipuncture cultures are preferred.