{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,3]],"date-time":"2025-09-03T00:11:25Z","timestamp":1756858285509,"version":"3.44.0"},"reference-count":14,"publisher":"Microbiology Society","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,2]],"date-time":"2025-09-02T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1756771200000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,2]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                  <jats:bold>Introduction.<\/jats:bold> Blood cultures are an important test for the diagnosis of sepsis, and the time to an accurate result can allow for optimized antibiotic therapy. The \u2018choc drop\u2019 is a commonly performed, reliable and cheap rapid identification method, using a drop of positive blood culture broth incubated for a short period (2\u20134\u2009h) before performing matrix-assisted laser desorption\/ionization time-of-flight MS on any early growth\/microbiological veil present.<\/jats:p>\n               <jats:p>\n                  <jats:bold>Hypothesis.<\/jats:bold> Due to the short incubation time (~2\u2009h), agar plates may not reach the target temperature for optimal bacterial growth, leading to reduced accuracy of identification. Pre-warmed agar plates may allow for target temperature attainment more rapidly and therefore lead to more accurate identification in short-term incubation.<\/jats:p>\n               <jats:p>\n                  <jats:bold>Aim.<\/jats:bold> To investigate if pre-warmed chocolate agar used for choc drop identification resulted in increased rates of correct identification.<\/jats:p>\n               <jats:p>\n                  <jats:bold>Methodology.<\/jats:bold> In this study, baseline performance of choc drop identification using room temperature chocolate agar plates (<jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic>=542) was compared with an interventional period of pre-warmed chocolate agar plates (<jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic>=426).<\/jats:p>\n               <jats:p>\n                  <jats:bold>Results.<\/jats:bold> Pre-warmed plates showed an increase in correct identification rate of 16.1% [95\u200a% confidence interval (CI) 9.8%\u201322.4%, <jats:italic>P<\/jats:italic>=0.0013], largely due to a 17.1% (95% CI 11.1%\u201323.1%, <jats:italic>P<\/jats:italic>&lt;0.0001) decrease in Gram-positive bacteria returning \u2018no identification\u2019. There were slightly more errors in the interventional (<jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic>=11, 2.8%) compared with the baseline period (<jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic>=2, 0.2%).<\/jats:p>\n               <jats:p>\n                  <jats:bold>Conclusions.<\/jats:bold> Pre-warming plates appears to be a cheap, effective and easy to implement method for improving the diagnostic yield of short-term incubation for rapid blood culture identification.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1099\/jmm.0.002057","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,2]],"date-time":"2025-09-02T17:16:26Z","timestamp":1756833386000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Hot chocolate: pre-warming chocolate agar improves correct organism identification from choc drop by 16.1%"],"prefix":"10.1099","volume":"74","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0002-4461-1412","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mark","family":"Fahmy","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Microbiology, Pathology Queensland, Royal Brisbane and Women\u2019s Hospital, Brisbane, QLD 4006, Australia"},{"name":"Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, Herston, QLD 4006, Australia"},{"name":"Microbiology, Mater Pathology, Mater Hospital Brisbane, South Brisbane, QLD 4101, Australia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Mark","family":"Armstrong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Infectious Diseases, Mater Public Hospital Brisbane, South Brisbane, QLD 4101, Australia"},{"name":"Microbiology, Mater Pathology, Mater Hospital Brisbane, South Brisbane, QLD 4101, Australia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Nicola","family":"Townell","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Microbiology, Mater Pathology, Mater Hospital Brisbane, South Brisbane, QLD 4101, Australia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"345","reference":[{"key":"R1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3389\/fmicb.2016.00697"},{"key":"R2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1128\/jcm.34.9.2180-2184.1996"},{"key":"R3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1186\/s12879-022-07504-1"},{"key":"R4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jemermed.2016.12.009"},{"key":"R5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3389\/fmed.2021.635831"},{"key":"R6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.mimet.2015.04.009"},{"key":"R7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ijmmb.2024.100747"},{"key":"R8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3791\/51985"},{"key":"R9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1099\/00221287-7-1-2-8"},{"key":"R10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1128\/JCM.01788-14"},{"key":"R11","first-page":"123","article-title":"Choc drop method for organism identification direct from blood cultures","volume":"77","author":"Kally","year":"2024","journal-title":"J Clin Pathol"},{"key":"R12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1128\/spectrum.03065-23"},{"key":"R13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0267669"},{"key":"R14","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/cid\/cir726"}],"container-title":["Journal of Medical Microbiology"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.microbiologyresearch.org\/content\/journal\/jmm\/10.1099\/jmm.0.002057?crawler=true&mimetype=application\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,2]],"date-time":"2025-09-02T17:16:27Z","timestamp":1756833387000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.microbiologyresearch.org\/content\/journal\/jmm\/10.1099\/jmm.0.002057"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,2]]},"references-count":14,"journal-issue":{"issue":"9","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,2]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1099\/jmm.0.002057","relation":{},"ISSN":["0022-2615","1473-5644"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0022-2615","type":"print"},{"value":"1473-5644","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,2]]}}}