Seminested PCR for detection and identification of Candida species directly from blood culture bottles.

We investigated the performance of a seminested PCR (snPCR) assay carried out directly from overnight incubated blood culture bottles of 50 newborn intensive care unit (NICU) patients with suspected candidemia and compared these, for sensitivity, specificity and reliability with results from blood cultures. All positive blood cultures (n = 17) yielded positive results for snPCR, which detected the same Candida species, as did the yeast isolates of which 13 were C. parapsilosis and 4 were C.