Blood culture test: Can the consumption of antibiotics cause false positives?

Question

Or will they just possibly limit the growth of bacteria in the petri dish?

If a person has been taking antibiotics will that cause any false positives for any bacteria? Sounds unlikely to me but just wanted to know for sure.

Answer 1

i think it sort of depends on what types of bacteria are growing in the blood culture. usually its just 1 organism.

but say there are multiple organisms and the patient is put on an antibiotic. depending on what abx the patient is given it may supress a certain kind of bacteria and not affect others giving them a chance to grow and flourish. this is not considered a "false positive" though because the bacteria was there the whole time.