Utility of Repeating Blood Cultures in Candidemia: Insights From 2 Large Clinical Data Repositories

Hisato Yoshida; Max W Adelman; Francis Ifiora; María Alejandra Pérez; Marilyn Niravath; Hitoshi Yoshimura; Stephen L Jones; Cesar A Arias; Masayuki Nigo

doi:10.1093/cid/ciag216

Utility of Repeating Blood Cultures in Candidemia: Insights From 2 Large Clinical Data Repositories

Clin Infect Dis. 2026 Jul 23;83(1):e105-e108. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciag216.

Authors

Hisato Yoshida^{1

2}, Max W Adelman^{1

3

4

5}, Francis Ifiora¹, María Alejandra Pérez¹, Marilyn Niravath^{6

7}, Hitoshi Yoshimura², Stephen L Jones^{6

7}, Cesar A Arias^{1

3

4}, Masayuki Nigo^{1

3

4

8}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Infectious Diseases, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, Texas, USA.
² Department of Dentistry and Oral Surgery, Unit of Sensory and Locomotor Medicine, Division of Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan.
³ Division of Infectious Diseases, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas, USA.
⁴ Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, NewYork, New York, USA.
⁵ Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas, USA.
⁶ Center for Health Data Science and Analytics, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas, USA.
⁷ Department of Surgery, Weill Cornell Medical College, NewYork, New York, USA.
⁸ Department of Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan.

Abstract

We evaluated utility of repeating blood culture for candidemia using 2 electronic health record datasets. Among 1386 candidemia episodes, repeated blood culture detected 23% of episodes at Houston Methodist Hospital and 45% in Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV after the initial negative cultures. These findings support repeating blood cultures when candidemia is highly suspected.

Keywords: blood culture; candidemia.

MeSH terms

Blood Culture* / methods
Blood Culture* / statistics & numerical data
Candida / isolation & purification
Candidemia* / blood
Candidemia* / diagnosis
Candidemia* / microbiology
Electronic Health Records
Humans

Abstract

MeSH terms

Grants and funding