Evaluation of blood culture media supplemented with sucrose or with cysteine.

A total of 5,883 blood samples from patients with suspected bacteremia were inoculated concurrently into each of three media under vacuum with CO2: tryptic soy broth (TSB) with sodium polyanetholesulfonate (SPS), TSB with SPS and cysteine, and TSB with SPS and sucrose. There were 395 positive cultures, excluding presumed contaminants. No significant differences were noted with the addition of cysteine to TSB with SPS, and no streptococcal mutants requiring thiol groups were isolated. Haemophilus, Staphylococcus aureus, and bacteriodaceae were isolated more frequently (P less than 0.05) in the absence of sucrose. The addition of sucrose to TSB containing SPS did not significantly increase the rate of positivity or the time interval to detection of positivity of any group of bacteria.