Historical evolution of automated blood culture systems

Blood cultures comprise a significant portion of the workload in most clinical microbiology laboratories. However, detection systems that automate the reading of blood culture bottles can reduce the burden blood cultures place upon the laboratory. Accordingly, a number of automated blood culture detection systems have been developed over the past three decades (Table 1). This article reviews the development of commercial automated blood culture systems and briefly summarizes the principles upon which each type of system is based.