<P> When a patient shows signs or symptoms of a systemic infection, results from a blood culture can verify that an infection is present, and they can identify the type (or types) of microorganism that is responsible for the infection . For example, blood tests can identify the causative organisms in severe pneumonia, puerperal fever, pelvic inflammatory disease, neonatal epiglottitis, sepsis, and fever of unknown origin (FUO). However, negative growths do not exclude infection . </P> <P> The usual risks of venipuncture and the occurrence of false positive results approximately 3% + of the time, can lead to inappropriate treatment . </P> <P> A minimum of 10 ml of blood is taken through venipuncture and injected into two or more "blood bottles" with specific media for aerobic and anaerobic organisms . A common medium used for anaerobes is thioglycollate broth . </P> <P> The blood is collected using aseptic technique . This requires that both the tops of the culture bottles and the venipuncture site of the patient are cleaned prior to collection by swabbing with 70% isopropyl alcohol (povidone and left to dry before venipuncture). </P>

What is the liquid in blood culture bottles