A pilot study compares swab and fluid cultures in infected surgical sites, revealing implications for pathogen detection.
Guidelines urge that infected fluid or tissue obtained during surgery be submitted for microbiologic study directly rather than via swab. A prospective study of operative specimens showed concordance in 64.7% of cases with better yield from abscess fluid, but swab cultures sometimes identified important pathogens missed by fluid culture.
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Lou et al. (2026) studied this question.
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