either system) occurred only once with each system; BacT/
Alert failed to detect growth of Staphylococcus epidermidis
and BACTEC failed to detect growth of Candida tropicalis.
False-positive cultures accounted for less than 1% of all
cultures analyzed with the BacT/Alert system. Figure 5
shows representative growth curves of three positive cultures
of blood obtained from bacteremic patients during the
clinical trial.
DISCUSSION
BacT/Alert was designed to rapidly, accurately, and reliably
detect microorganisms in blood and other body fluids