Diagnostic value of bone marrow culture in typhoid fever

Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg. 1979;73(6):680-3. doi: 10.1016/0035-9203(79)90020-8.

Abstract

The diagnostic efficacy of bone-marrow culture, serial blood cultures and agglutination tests was compared in a prospective study of 60 patients with typhoid fever, two thirds of whom had received prior antibacterial therapy. Salmonella typhi was recovered from marrow cultures in 95% of patients but blood cultures were positive in only 43.3% (P less than 0.001). Agglutination tests were eventually diagnostic in 56.7% of patients, but in only 25% at the time of admission. If procedures had been limited to blood cultures and agglutination tests, diagnosis would have been missed in 21.7% of cases. The efficacy of marrow cultures was affected not by the duration of disease but by the extent of antibacterial therapy before presentation. Bacteriological recovery was faster from marrow cultures.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Agglutination Tests
  • Blood / microbiology
  • Bone Marrow / microbiology*
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Salmonella typhi / isolation & purification*
  • Typhoid Fever / diagnosis
  • Typhoid Fever / drug therapy
  • Typhoid Fever / microbiology*