Clinical Information

Infection of normally sterile body fluids often results in severe morbidity and mortality; therefore, rapid and accurate microbiological assessment of these samples is important to successful patient management. Most organisms infecting these sites are not difficult to culture, but determining the significance of low numbers of cutaneous microbiota does present a challenge. With the increased use of protheses, immunosuppressive therapeutic regimens, and long-term care of individuals with chronic debilitating disease, the likelihood of true infection with commensal organisms from the skin has increased, making accurate diagnosis difficult. Care must be taken during specimen collection and transport to ensure that the specimen is not contaminated. Any microorganism growing on an agar medium from a specimen collected from a normally sterile site must be considered significant, and all isolates must be reported.