Serial Blood Cultures for MSSA Bacteremia: When Can We Stop?

Patients receiving antibiotic therapy for Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia can have intermittent negative blood cultures despite ongoing bacteremia (Figure 1). This pattern, known as the skip phenomenon, has prompted calls for two consecutive days of negative cultures before establishing clearance. But is that necessary, or could one negative culture plus clinical information be sufficient? To find out, researchers retrospectively studied 1000 patients with methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) bacteremia at two Dutch hospitals.