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Lysis centrifugation blood cultures (e.g., Dupont isolator) are commonly used because they may increase the recovery of fungi compared with conventional blood culture systems such as BACTEC. The high incidence of disseminated fungal infections in febrile AIDS patients prompts many clinicians to routinely obtain both conventional and fungal isolator blood cultures. But is the extra expense and labor of fungal isolators worth it?
In this study the effectiveness of 1,162 Dupont fungal isolator cultures was retrospectively compared with that of conventional BACTEC cultures in the detection of fungal infections in 322 AIDS patients from a single center over a 25-month period. Fifteen patients had true fungal infections (7 cryptococcosis, 6 candid…