[A day in Spanish microbiology. Descriptive study of the activity of the clinical microbiology departments].
BACKGROUND
The laboratory is an essential part of the work in the Clinical Microbiology Department. This study has aimed to measure the activity of these laboratories.


METHODS
A survey was self-administered on the activity occurring during one work day by each hospital in October 2007.


RESULTS
Thirty six hospitals reported 14,076 tests. Serology was the most frequently reported test (30.3%) followed by urine culture (27.8 %), blood tests (13.2 %), respiratory tract samples (8%), feces (7.1%), urethral (5.8%), skin (5.3%) and cerebrospinal fluid (2.6%). According to species, 73.2% of the isolates were bacteria (22.9 % were positive), 8.9% were virus (17% positive), fungi 8.1% (25.2% positive), and 5.5% mycobacterias (5.9% were positive) and parasite 4.5% (12.5% positive). Susceptibility test were performed by automatic methods (62.3%) followed by diffusion test (27.1%) and E-test (9.1%). A total of 5.6% of the susceptibility tests showed in vitro resistance to antibiotics. Fungi were identified in 108 isolates. Candida and Aspergillus were the most frequent genus (85.1% and 8.3%, respectively). Origins of the samples were: lower respiratory tract (32.4 %), genital tract (24.1 %), urine (10.2 %), blood (10.2 %) and skin (10.2 %). Twelve identification techniques were used, the most frequent being the morphological test (54.8%) and biochemical test (39.7%). Broken down by departments, 20.4% were sent from the ICU, 16.7% from surgery, 29.6% from medicine and 18.5% from primary care.


CONCLUSIONS
Although the workload of the laboratories has been measured in this work, aspects such as specimen manipulation, clinical advice and research were not considered.
Prieto
J
J
Departamento de Microbiologia, Facultad de Medicina, Universitad Complutense de Madrid, Espana.
García-Rodríguez
Ja
J
Barberán
J
J
Granizo
Jj
J
Rodicio
Mp
M
González
J
J
D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D006801:Humans; D007755:Laboratories, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008829:Microbiology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013030:Spain