Do all Emergency Room Patients With Influenza-like Symptoms Need Blood Cultures? A Retrospective Cohort Study of 2 Annual Influenza Seasons

Simone Ehrhard; Lukas Herren; Meret E Ricklin; Franziska Suter-Riniker; Aristomenis K Exadaktylos; Wolf Hautz; Martin Müller; Philipp Jent

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofae242

Do all Emergency Room Patients With Influenza-like Symptoms Need Blood Cultures? A Retrospective Cohort Study of 2 Annual Influenza Seasons

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2024 Apr 30;11(5):ofae242. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofae242. eCollection 2024 May.

Authors

Simone Ehrhard¹, Lukas Herren¹, Meret E Ricklin¹, Franziska Suter-Riniker², Aristomenis K Exadaktylos¹, Wolf Hautz¹, Martin Müller¹, Philipp Jent³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Emergency Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
² Institute for Infectious Diseases, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
³ Department of Infectious Diseases, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.

Abstract

In this retrospective cohort study, we evaluated risk factors for bacteremia in emergency department patients presenting with influenza-like symptoms during influenza epidemic seasons. In patients without fever, chronic heart or chronic liver disease, blood culture collection might be omitted.

Keywords: COVID-19; bacteremia; diagnostic stewardship; flu; influenza.