Background: A major complication of peritoneal dialysis (PD) is peritonitis, and bacterial culture of PD effluent in a blood culture bottle is the preferred technique for diagnosis of peritonitis. In this study, we compared dialysate inoculation and culture using the BacT/AlerT^Ⓡ Fastidious Antimicrobial Neutralization Plus blood culture bottles (FAN Plus; bioMérieux, France) to the conventional centrifugation culture method.

Methods: A total of 170 PD effluents were simultaneously processed by the conventional centrifugation culture method and by culture using FAN Plus media with two different inoculation procedures: inoculation after centrifugation and direct bedside inoculation.

Results: Of the 52 cultures that were positive on at least one of the culture methods, 27 samples were positive on conventional centrifugation. However, 46 samples showed growth following inoculation into the FAN Plus media after centrifugation, and 47 samples were positive on the direct FAN Plus inoculation method. Using the case definition for PD peritonitis to classify samples, sensitivity of the conventional method was 50.0% (95% CI, 33.7-66.3%), whereas the sensitivity of the FAN Plus media was 78.9% (95% CI, 62.2-89.9%) by inoculation after centrifugation and 86.8% (95% CI, 71.1-95.1%) by direct inoculation. Use of both inoculation methods with FAN Plus media resulted in 92.1% sensitivity (95% CI, 89.2-99.9%).

Conclusion: Culture using FAN Plus media demonstrated a superior bacterial recovery rate to the conventional centrifugation culture method. A combination of the two inoculation methods with FAN Plus media is recommended for the best diagnostic yield, while direct inoculation alone can be useful due to its simplicity and cost-effectiveness. (Ann Clin Microbiol 2019;22:90-95)