[Saline solution as culture media from a viewpoint of nosocomial bacteremia].

Introduction: Nutrient-containing aqueous solutions for parenteral use are susceptible of microbial contamination, beeing an important cause of serious infectious complications. Objective. To determine the capacity of organisms for growing in saline as compared with dextrose solution and tri-destilled sterile water.

Material And Methods: Experimental controlled study. Different microbial strains were innoculated in aqueous solutions (5% dextrose and 0.9% saline) as well as tri-destilled sterile water. Results were analized using the ANOVA test for repeated measurements.

Results: In 0.9% saline solution, all the Enterobacteriaceae strains tested had a significant increase in their bacterial quantification in the analized time period (F = 8.35, p = 0.0145). For most organisms, the growth was even better than the one observed in nutrient-containing solution.

Conclusions: The 0.9% saline solution can support significative growing of potentially pathogenic bacteria. We recommend a strict compliance to the good nursing standards when handling this kind of solutions.