Critical care : the official journal of the Critical Care Forum
-
Meta Analysis
Comparison of culture-negative and culture-positive sepsis or septic shock: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Mortality and other clinical outcomes between culture-negative and culture-positive septic patients have been documented inconsistently and are very controversial. A systematic review and meta-analysis was performed to compare the clinical outcomes of culture-negative and culture-positive sepsis or septic shock. ⋯ Culture positivity or negativity was not associated with mortality of sepsis or septic shock patients. Furthermore, culture-positive septic patients had similar ICU length of stay, mechanical ventilation requirements and renal replacement requirements as those culture-negative patients. The hospital length of stay and mechanical ventilation duration of culture-positive septic patients were both longer than that of the culture-negative patients. Further large-scale studies are still required to confirm these results.