A study of 16,108 blood cultures investigated the value of performing early smears in addition to the inspection of early subcultures after 12 h of incubation. The early smear and subculture detected 44.6% of 1,236 positive cultures; of those detected by the early subculture, 57.3% grew after 12 h of incubation.
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Hawkins et al. (1983) studied this question.
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