Blood culture results in elderly febrile patients

Aim: We retrospectively evaluated blood culture results in elderly patients (≥65 years) with a fever due to infection. Methods: We examined the bacteria isolated from blood cultures and compared them to bacteria detected in infected lesions that caused bacteremia. We compared the types of bacteria isolated in the two groups (the community-acquired group and the hospital-acquired group). Results: Blood cultures were obtained from 638 patients. Bacteria were detected in 182 patients (28.5%), including 66 (36.3%) patients in the community-acquired group and 116 (63.7%) patients in the hospital-acquired group. There were 259 positive samples (25.1%). In arterial blood specimens, 153 (30.9%) samples were positive, while in venous blood specimens, there were 106 (19.8%) positive samples (P