COMPARISON OF CONVENTIONAL CULTURE CONTAINERS AND BACTEC BLOOD CULTURE MEDIA METHODS FOR DETECTION OF BACTERIAL MICROORGANISM IN EMPYEMA.


Creative Commons License

ÖZKAN KOYUNCUOĞLU N. D., TOMBUL İ., ASLAN M. T., SAYAN M., ÇELİK A., KURUL İ. C.

30th Meeting of the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons, Hague, Netherlands, 19 June 2022

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Full Text
  • City: Hague
  • Country: Netherlands
  • Gazi University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

OBJECTIVES The rate of culture negativity in patients with empyema has been reported between 18-30% in different series. This high rate of negativity in conventional culture containers leads to prolonged length of hospital stay due to nonspecific empirical antibiotic therapy. In various studies showed the rate of detection of causative microorganisms was increased in BACTEC blood culture media. Here we aimed to investigate whether BACTEC was superior to classical culture containers on microorganism growth in cases with empyema.


METHODS Following the approval of the local ethics committee, the records of patients who applied to our clinic between March 2018 and September 2020 and underwent tube or catheter thoracostomy due to empyema were reviewed retrospectively. Data of patients were analyzed according to age, gender, presence of any microorganism, method of pleura culture, type of pleural catheterization. Patients whose pleural culture were reported as contamination and those whose follow-up records could not be reached were not included in the study.


RESULTS A total of ninety one samples that met the criteria were included in the study. The median age was 64 (18-88). 15 of the patients were female (16.5%) and 76 were male (83.5%). While no growth was observed in the classical culture containers in 44% of the patients, growth was observed in the BACTEC blood culture media in 69.2% of the patients. Microorganism growth was found to be significantly higher in the BACTEC.


CONCLUSIONS It is very important to start culture-specific antibiotic therapy in empyema cases and to produce the causative microorganism for the treatment of the patient, reducing morbidity and length of hospital stay. The success of microorganism production in the BACTEC media found to be significantly superior to the classical culture container. Disclosure: No significant relationships.


Keywords: Empyema, Culture, Microorganism.