Timely and accurate antibiotic treatment early during the course of suspected Bloodstream Infection (BSI) has been shown to improve a patient's prognosis. Blood cultures should be collected before the initiation of empiric antibiotic treatment and thus a conventional Gram staining result may be available within a few hours. Although rapid advance are being made in bacterial identification methodology, the Gram stain of a positive blood culture still has an important role to play. The Gram stain is very accurate and the result may help decide quickly on the early appropriate antimicrobial treatment. Combining the stain results with information on whether the infection is hospital- or community-acquired may further assist in coming to the decision about the best antimicrobial treatment for BSI.
Scholarly peer review is the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field, before a paper describing this work is published in a journal. The work may be accepted, considered acceptable with revisions, or rejected. Peer review requires a community of experts in a given (narrowly defined) field, who are qualified and able to perform reasonably impartial review.
Last date updated on April, 2024
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