title: Anaerobic bacteremia: the yield of positive anaerobic blood cultures: patient characteristics and potential risk factors.
abstract: The anaerobic blood culture (AN) bottle is routinely used in Japan with little discussion as to its justification or validity. We retrospectively studied the AN bottle yield of obligate anaerobes and the characteristics of, and potential risk factors in, patients with anaerobic bacteremia during a 2-year period (1999-2000) at four university hospitals and one community hospital. Thirty-four of 18,310 aerobic and anaerobic blood culture sets from 6,215 patients taken at the university hospitals, and 35 of 2,464 samples taken from 838 patients at the community hospital, yielded obligate anaerobes. Bacteroides species and Clostridium species accounted for 60% of the isolates. Fifty-seven patients from 69 blood culture sets containing anaerobes had clinically significant anaerobic bacteremia. Among these 57 patients, 24 (49%) were oncology patients, 40 (70%) had an obvious source of anaerobic infection, 15 (26%) had recent surgery and/or were in an immunosuppressed state. We concluded that the recovery rate of obligate anaerobes isolated from AN bottles was low, and the patients with anaerobic bacteremia had limited number of underlying diseases or potential risk factors for anaerobic infections. Therefore, anaerobic blood cultures may be selectively used according to the potential risk for anaerobic infections.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan.
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Saito
authors.forename: Kazuyoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Senda
authors.forename: Shunji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Takakura
authors.forename: Naoko
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Fujihara
authors.forename: Toyoichiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kudo
authors.forename: Yoshitsugu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Linuma
authors.forename: Naohisa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Fujita
authors.forename: Toshiaki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Komori
authors.forename: Naoshi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Baba
authors.forename: Toshinobu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Horii
authors.forename: Kimiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Matsuoka
authors.forename: Mitsune
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tanimoto
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ichiyama
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016470:Bacteremia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000382:microbiology*; D001421:Bacteria, Anaerobic / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D001431:Bacteriological Techniques; D001439:Bacteroides / Q000302:isolation & purification; D001442:Bacteroides Infections / Q000382:microbiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003013:Clostridium / Q000302:isolation & purification; D003015:Clostridium Infections / Q000382:microbiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors