title: Usefulness of the PCR technique for bacterial DNA detection in blood of the patients after "opened heart" operations.
abstract: To confirm the sensitivity of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique (versus blood cultures) and to gain a better understanding of the incidence of true- and false-positive results when using this technique, one hundred randomly chosen patients treated operationally because of valve defects were examined. In our studies we found that PCR techniques using universal primers complementary to the bacterial 16S rDNA showed promise as being more sensitive than conventional blood culture (BC) techniques. From the time that a blood culture is positive, conventional methods of culture and antibiotic susceptibility testing require at least 64 h for the detection of infection or colonization. Rapid identification of bacteria from blood using PCR technique accelerates the microbiological diagnosis.
authors.affiliation: Clinic of Cardiac Surgery and Cardiology, Medical University of Gdańsk, ul Debinki 7, 80-211 Gdańsk, Poland.
authors.forename: Piotr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Siondalski
authors.forename: Janusz
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Siebert
authors.forename: Alfred
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Samet
authors.forename: Marek
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bronk
authors.forename: Beata
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Krawczyk
authors.forename: Józef
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kur
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016470:Bacteremia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006348:Cardiac Surgical Procedures; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial