Comparison of tryptic soy broth with tryptic soy broth supplemented with sucrose in the septi-chek blood culture system.

The performance of tryptic soy broth (TSB) was compared with TSB supplemented with 10% sucrose (TSB-S) in the Septi-Chek blood culture system (Roche Diagnostics, Div. Hoffmann-La Roche Inc.). A total of 2,292 sets of blood cultures were evaluated. Although slightly more isolates were recovered in the TSB bottle in comparison with the TSB-S bottle, there was no significant difference between the two medium formulations in the recovery of either gram-positive or gram-negative bacteria. Significantly more isolates of fungi were recovered in the TSB bottles. At least 94% of all isolates were detected by day 3 of incubation in both the TSB and TSB-S bottles. Thus, the addition of sucrose to TSB did not result in greater total recovery or faster recovery of the isolates detected in this study.