To the Editor,
We agree that a culture-positive specimen suggests that bacteria are present, and we agree that the term “false-positive” needs to be revisited. Clinicians cannot cavalierly dismiss any culture result that was properly obtained. This highlights the importance of meticulous harvesting and laboratory technique when handling specimens.
The anaerobic conditions of an agar with kanamycin and vancomycin may affect the detection of Propionibacterium. Although not included in the manuscript, our laboratory used a blood agar without kanamycin and vancomycin, which would not interfere with the ability of these cultures to detect Propionibacterium.
Footnotes
(RE: Jennings JM, Dennis DA, Kim RH, Miner TM, Yang CC, McNabb DC. False-positive cultures after native knee aspiration: True or false. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2017;475:1840-1843).
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