Concordance between qualitative and quantitative cultures in burned patients. Analysis of 2886 cultures

To determine the concordance between superficial cultures (SC) and quantitative cultures (QC) in the diagnosis of wound infection in burn patients. All SC and QC taken from the same patient, site and during the same surgery were analysed. On the SC, the microorganism (MO) and its amount defined subjectively by the microbiologist was recorded (negative, very low, low, regular and abundant). On the QC, the MO and its amount were expressed as colony forming units per gram of tissue (CFUs/g). Kappa index of agreement beyond chance; Wilcoxon and Kruskall-Wallis for continuous variables and chi(2) for categorical variables were used with a p