Association of Endotracheal Aspirate Culture Variability and Antibiotic Use in Mechanically Ventilated Pediatric Patients.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

Endotracheal aspirate cultures are commonly collected from patients with mechanical ventilation to evaluate for ventilator-associated pneumonia or tracheitis. However, the respiratory tract is not sterile, making differentiating between colonization from bacterial infection challenging, and results may be unreliable owing to variable specimen quality and sample processing across laboratories. Despite these limitations, clinicians routinely interpret bacterial growth in endotracheal aspirate cultures as evidence of infection, sometimes regardless of organism significance, prompting antibiotic treatment.

Objective

To assess the variability in endotracheal aspirate culture rates and the association between culture rates and antibiotic prescribing among patients with

SUBMITTER: Prinzi A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8696566 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature