title: Direct inoculation on Phoenix panels for identification and antimicrobial susceptibility from positive BACTEC cultures: first study from India.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This was a prospective study planned in a super-specialty hospital in Delhi to reduce turnaround times of identification-susceptibility results of positive blood cultures.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred consecutive single morphology non-duplicate cultures were inoculated on Becton Dickinson Phoenix™ panels by growth recovered directly from liquid BACTEC™ media and after pure growth on solid media.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Complete concordance was observed in 72.4% of gram-negative and 45.8% of gram-positive isolates. For gram-negative isolates, categorical agreement (CA) was >83% and essential agreement (EA) was >96% among all antibiotics tested, very major errors (VME) were 0.13%, major errors (ME) 0.54%, and minor errors (MiE) were 3.01%. For gram-positive isolates, VME was 0.73%, 1.10% MiE and no ME. It was observed that average time from receipt of specimen to release of reports was 30:34 h and 32 h for gram-negative and gram-positive isolates if reports of "Direct" panels were to be released.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  By direct panel inoculation, a decrease of at least 18-20 h in turnaround time was observed compared with the standard method. This helps early change to effective antibiotic therapy and also reduces the expenditure incurred for a patient's hospital stay by average Rs 20,000 ($443) per day.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, Rohini, Delhi-110085, India. shaliniduggal2005@rediffmail.com
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Duggal
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Jesaiwal
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tandon
authors.forename: T D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Chugh
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D016470:Bacteremia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology*; D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests / Q000379:methods; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000379:methods*; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents