Diagnostic value of bone marrow culture in typhoid fever.
The diagnostic efficacy of bone-marrow culture, serial blood cultures and agglutination tests was compared in a prospective study of 60 patients with typhoid fever, two thirds of whom had received prior antibacterial therapy. Salmonella typhi was recovered from marrow cultures in 95% of patients but blood cultures were positive in only 43.3% (P less than 0.001). Agglutination tests were eventually diagnostic in 56.7% of patients, but in only 25% at the time of admission. If procedures had been limited to blood cultures and agglutination tests, diagnosis would have been missed in 21.7% of cases. The efficacy of marrow cultures was affected not by the duration of disease but by the extent of antibacterial therapy before presentation. Bacteriological recovery was faster from marrow cultures.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000372:Agglutination Tests; D001769:Blood / Q000382:microbiology; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000382:microbiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012485:Salmonella typhi / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D014435:Typhoid Fever / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000382:microbiology*