Culture, Surgery (Active Surgery Case)

ORTHOPEDIC SURGICAL WOUND CULTURE SPECIMENS from Prosthetic Joint Replacement Surgery:

Typical specimens for Orthopedic Surgical Wound Cultures:

• Hip


• Knee


• Shoulder


• Elbow


• Ankle


• Vertebae from back surgery

Often multiple specimens from the site are submitted for culture and should be processed separately in order to provide clinicians with data about how many cultures are positive for a particular isolated organism. 

Aspiration of synovial tissue, biopsy or synovium, or other joint bone or tissue should be submitted to the laboratory as quickly as possible in appropriate transport containers.  These specimens can be submitted in a sterile container or capped syringe.  

At times aspiration or biopsy is not feasible so an anaerobic swab may be used for the culture - however these must be collected with care to avoid contamination with the skin or mucous membrane bacterial flora.

Swab specimens in anaerobic transport (gel tubes, etc) will only preserve anaerobes for at most, up to 24 hours.  Flocked swabs transported in the ESwab system is an excellent specimen preservative also.

1. All specimens should be labeled with the exact source, patient name and medical record number


2. Specimen should be transported to the Microbiology laboratory as soon as it is collected -- within 1-2 hours.


3. Specimens collected in plastic syringes should be processed within 30 minutes of collection whenever possible.


4. Specimens should be left at room temperature if the culture cannot be initiated promptly.