A NEW COST EFFECTIVE AND RAPID METHOD FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF BLOOD CULTURES

Abstract

Current automatized blood culture measurement systems are usually based on measurement of carbon dioxide with fluorescence. Long lasting measurement period and high cost are the major disadvantages of such methods. In this study, a new blood culture measurement system that determines growth of blood cultures by monitoring pressure changes in the tube is presented. We could not find any research that investigated equivalent or similar method in English language literature. Our proposed method provides a rapid and inexpensive blood culture measurement. This method uses conventional blood culture tubes and is based on measurement of the slope of the pressure change in the tube. The new method offered here is seven times faster for positive results and 10 times faster for negative results as compared to the current automatized blood culture measurement systems. An economical device, which is able to precisely measure pressure changes of the gasses in the standard measurement tubes, has been designed. By means of this method, much faster and economic pre-assessments can be performed using standard measurement tubes that are more economic.