Chun-Hsing Liao^1,2, Yu-Tsung Huang^1,2, Fang-Yeh Chu³, Tsui-Hsien Lin³, Po-Ren Hsueh^2,4
1Department of Internal Medicine, Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, Taipei; ²Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei; ³Department of Laboratory Medicine, Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, Taipei; and ⁴Department of Laboratory Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan

Received: December 4, 2007   Revised: February 1, 2008   Accepted: March 15, 2008

Corresponding author: Dr. Po-Ren Hsueh, Department of Laboratory Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, 7, Chung-Shan South Road, 100 Taipei, Taiwan. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Time to positivity is an available parameter in automated blood culture systems. We report a patient withpersistent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia who received various regimens for treatment of methicillin-resistant S. aureus, and demonstrate that monitoring of the time to positive blood culture might be helpful in the early recognition of treatment failure.

Key words: Bacteremia; Methicillin resistance; Staphylococcus aureus

J Microbiol Immunol Infect. 2008;41:355-357.