Is there a need for taking blood cultures from febrile adults discharged from the emergency department? [1]

In summary this study showed that only 1.14% of adult patients seen in the emergency room and discharged had a positive blood culture. Most of these patients had a benign course of their disease were treated with appropriate antibiotics and had a good outcome. Like in former studies, we conclude that there is no advantage in performing routine blood cultures for all adults with fever seen in the emergency room and this approach would not be cost effective. There is definitely need in performing more studies in order to define more accurately who are the patients discharged from the emergency room from whom blood cultures should be performed.