Question

Why must a Gram Stain be done on every single Blood Culture bottle that alarms as positive? Consider this: Why must we do a Gram Stain on a patient who has already had a positive Blood Culture bottle previously? What does having repeatable results tell you?

Answer 1

Yes, it is true that Gram Stain is done on every single Blood Culture bottle that alarms as positive. but first, let us talk about what Blood culture is.

Blood Culture is a test that simply tells you if there is any microorganism like bacteria, virus etc in your blood or not. Having these microorganisms in your blood can be the cause of blood infection.

Now let us talk about what is a Gram Stain and why it is used?

Gram Stain is a staining method which is generally used to classify and differentiate bacteria into gram-positive and gram-negative. The test will tell if there are any bacteria in your body fluid or not.

Now, it is important to do Gram Stain on every single Blood Culture bottle that alarms as positive because as time passes, the microorganism started to lose their stain and later it will be tougher to differentiate them.