Blood cultures are tests aimed at checking for foreign invaders in the bloodstream, such as yeast, bacteria, and other microorganisms. A positive blood culture is the presence of these pathogens in the bloodstream, a term that is medically referred to as bacteremia. Normally, when a physician suspects their patients might have blood infections, they order blood cultures. Blood infections, if left untreated, can cause serious complications such as sepsis. Sepsis is an infection that attacks the bloodstream interfering with normal defenses and hindering the immune system from working properly. Symptoms of blood infections may include headaches, excessive fatigue, decreased urine, confusion, rapid breathing, and nausea.
The potential risks associated with performing blood cultures include bleeding under the skin, attracting infections, fainting, and excessive bleeding. In order to carry out an effective blood culture, one needs to talk with their doctors about any medication they might be using as some medicines affect the results of the exercise. If a patient is afraid of needles, they need to talk with the physician to look for viable ways to ease the nervousness.
People suffering from serious infections that affect kidneys, lungs, heart valves, and gallbladder call for blood culture in their dialysis. A blood culture is performed by adding a sample of blood to a substance that stimulates the growth of the germs (Peker et al., 2018). Blood culture is done to find bacterial infections such as sepsis, kidney infections, pneumonia, and meningitis that might have spread to the bloodstream. Apart from bacterial infections, they can assess fungal impurities such as yeast in the blood. Blood culture is used to investigate the underlying cause of unexplained shock, fever, or why a healthy individual becomes extremely ill instantly.
When carrying out blood culture, few problems are associated with these tests as only a small bruise will occur from the part where blood was drawn from. This does not mean contamination of blood culture will not happen. With proper handling, there is a low chance of pollution (Peker et al., 2018). The most common affluence is the skin impurities where microbes in the dermis layer may be drawn together with the sample. Without a way to eliminate these contaminants, there is a high rate of unavoidable false-positive blood cultures. Also, using unreliable approaches to culture collection that have frequent breaches in the aseptic technique.
Other causes of contamination include microbes from the environment, physicians’ hands, or collection devices. Such contamination occurs during catheter insertion, site preparation for venipuncture, or when bottles for collecting specimens are not appropriately disinfected. Additionally, the usage of not sterilized needles can cause contamination of the sample and spread diseases to the individual. Safety measures should be taken into consideration for better results and to enhance quality care for the patients. Some physicians gave the reasons for the contaminations as impractical phlebotomy guidelines, poor working environments, and lack of know-how and feedback.
Researchers have looked for appropriate ways to reduce contamination while performing blood cultures. They involved several practitioners from all departments ranging from infection control and clinical microbiology to infectious diseases. They came up with recommendations such as carefully and actively disinfecting the skin near the phlebotomy site for a short while before allowing it to dry. The recommendable sterilizing procedure that would avoid contamination included hand disinfection, swabbing the tops of the storage bottles, using protective gloves, and swabbing the injection site. The best chemical for observing hand hygiene is hydroalcoholic preparation which should be used twice, before and after the procedure.
During transportation, the samples need to be monitored critically as mishandling and delays are bound to cause or postpone bacteriological growth. The bottles containing the sample must be taken straight to the laboratory for testing as soon as possible as delays might negatively affect the blood culture rate (Ombelet et al., 2019). Additionally, different bottles should be labeled correctly to avoid confusion during the testing of the samples. Ensuring that the sample has arrived safely at the laboratory should be the number one priority for the attending physician.
After the blood culture sample has been taken, an individual can wait for the results for 2-3 days, depending on the type of bacteria in the bloodstream. Some types can take longer than others exceeding more than ten days, with fungus exceeding 30 days before being detected in the culture. When defining the results, specific terms are used, starting with normal, which refers to the absence of bacteria, and normal culture is termed as negative. Abnormal results have fungus or bacterial growth in the culture, referred to as positive (Ombelet et al., 2019). If positive results are found, another test is conducted to find a suitable antibiotic for the microorganisms. The test is vital as it helps treat the bacteria correctly and prevents it from becoming resilient to antibiotics.
In conclusion, it is important to ensure hygiene in the health sector to avoid contamination of any samples, either from blood cultures or other tests. Since blood culture is a sensitive matter, the collection should strictly emphasize standardized sterile techniques involving disinfected tools. Awareness should be created in all health facilities and scientific societies that deal with managing and providing theoretical frameworks needed for optimal clinical practice.
References
Peker, N., Couto, N., Sinha, B., & Rossen, J. W. (2018). Diagnosis of bloodstream infections from positive blood cultures and directly from blood samples: recent developments in molecular approaches. Clinical Microbiology and Infection, 24(9), 944-955. Web.
Ombelet, S., Barbé, B., Affolabi, D., Ronat, J.B., Lompo, P., Lunguya, O., Jacobs, J. and Hardy, L., (2019). Best practices of blood cultures in low-and middle-income countries. Frontiers in medicine, 6, 131. Web.