Patient Case: Staphylococcus aureus in a Urine Culture

KASIC Patient Case: Staphylococcus aureus in a Urine Culture

A 55 year old 👱🏼‍♂️ is admitted for afib and put on a diltiazem drip. A urine culture collected in the ED shows >100K S. aureus. Patient is non-septic with no GU symptoms. What testing/treatment is best?

A) Start vancomycin
B) Recollect urine cultures
C) Draw blood cultures
D) Ignore

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Best Answer

Draw blood cultures.

Explanation: Growth of S. aureus from a urine culture can indicate invasive infection. The risks of drawing blood cultures are low relative to the risk of untreated S. aureus bacteremia S. aureus is a rare cause of UTIs. If invasive infection is ruled out, growth from a urine culture may represent colonization or contamination during sample collection

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