RT Journal
A1 Eckert P, Bayram JD, Omron R
T1 BLood culture collection for suspected bacteremia
JF JAMA
JO JAMA
YR 2013
FD January 23
VO 309
IS 4
SP 339
OP 339
DO 10.1001/jama.2012.113517
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2012.113517
AB 
To the Editor: In the Rational Clinical Examination article by Dr Coburn and colleagues1 on whether a patient with suspected bacteremia requires blood cultures, a clinical prediction rule developed by Shapiro et al2 was highlighted as one of the few useful means of detecting patients with a low likelihood of bloodstream infection. The article reported that this rule has a negative likelihood ratio of 0.08 (95% CI, 0.04-0.17) for the presence of bacteremia. Therefore, the rule may allow clinicians to safely avoid blood cultures when applied accurately to patients with suspected infection and a low pretest probability of bacteremia.