Cultures of arterial catheter–drawn blood are reliable for the detection of bloodstream infection in PICUs. The study group consisted of 138 patients admitted to the general or cardiac PICU in 2014–2015 who met the following criteria: presence of an indwelling arterial catheter and indication for blood culture.

Blood was drawn by peripheral venipuncture and through the arterial catheter for each patient and sent for culture (total 276 culture pairs).

Two specialists blinded to the blood source evaluated each positive culture to determine if the result represented true bloodstream infection or contamination.

The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of the arterial catheter and peripheral cultures for the diagnosis of bloodstream infection were calculated.

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