Manual blood culture systems and the antimicrobial removal device.

In the midst of technologic advances within blood culture microbiology, several manual blood culture systems, which have an important role in the detection of bacteremia, mycobacteremia, and fungemia, are often overlooked. These include traditional broth-based systems, agar-broth biphasic blood culture techniques, a commercial broth-based manual system in which growth is detected by a broth displacement method, and lysis-centrifugation. This article reviews the operational features, advantages, and disadvantages of each.