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Blood cultures at central line insertion in the ICU, a comparison with peripheral venipuncture
Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 05/03/2011
Stohl S et al. – Contamination and true positive rates were similar for culture sets from the two ICUs for each given culture source. Despite superior sterile precautions, cultures taken at central line insertion had a higher contamination rate than either peripheral or arterial line blood cultures. This may be related to the increased manipulations required for central venous catheter insertion.
