Should aerobic blood cultures be shaken intermittently or continuously?

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Abstract
Stationary incubation of aerobic blood cultures was compared with intermittent shaking in aerobic VacutainerR 2630 bottles with agar slants during the first 24 h, and was simultaneously compared with the continuously shaken aerobic BactecR 6A bottles as a reference system. Intermittent shaking did not significantly increase or decrease the seven days yield of the Vacutainer bottles as compared with the continuously agitated BactecR 6A bottles. When one of 604 paired Vacutainer bottles was agitated for eight h and the other incubated stationary, the speed of growth detection was significantly greater in the agitated bottle (p< 0.001), but significantly less than with continuously agitated Bactec 6A bottles (p< 0.001). Agitation for 14 h showed the same pattern of detection speed. These results suggest that it is desirable initially to agitate aerobic blood cultures either intermittently or continuously.