Formal Name
Wound Culture; aerobic and/or anaerobic
This article was last reviewed on
This article waslast modified on 24 February 2020.
At a Glance
Why Get Tested?

To detect a bacterial wound infection, to determine which specific bacteria are present, and to isolate and grow the bacteria for subsequent susceptibility testing

When To Get Tested?

When your wound is hot, swollen or there is redness around the area. A sign of wound infection can also be increasing or continual pain and when the wound itself is not healing as quickly as expected.

Sample Required?

Usually a sterile swab used to collect cells or pus from the site of the suspected infection. Occasionally aspirations of fluid from deeper wounds into a syringe and/or a tissue biopsy may be required.

Test Preparation Needed?

No test preparation is needed.

On average it takes 7 working days for the blood test results to come back from the hospital, depending on the exact tests requested. Some specialist test results may take longer, if samples have to be sent to a reference (specialist) laboratory. The X-ray & scan results may take longer. If you are registered to use the online services of your local practice, you may be able to access your results online. Your GP practice will be able to provide specific details.

If the doctor wants to see you about the result(s), you will be offered an appointment. If you are concerned about your test results, you will need to arrange an appointment with your doctor so that all relevant information including age, ethnicity, health history, signs and symptoms, laboratory and other procedures (radiology, endoscopy, etc.), can be considered.

Lab Tests Online-UK is an educational website designed to provide patients and carers with information on laboratory tests used in medical care. We are not a laboratory and are unable to comment on an individual's health and treatment.

Reference ranges are dependent on many factors, including patient age, sex, sample population, and test method, and numeric test results can have different meanings in different laboratories.

For these reasons, you will not find reference ranges for the majority of tests described on this web site. The lab report containing your test results should include the relevant reference range for your test(s). Please consult your doctor or the laboratory that performed the test(s) to obtain the reference range if you do not have the lab report.

For more information on reference ranges, please read Reference Ranges and What They Mean.

What is being tested?

A bacterial wound culture is a test that is used to detect and identify pathogenic bacteria in a potentially infected wound. Wounds may be superficial breaks in the skin such as scrapes, cuts and scratches or may involve deeper tissues such as incisions, bites, punctures or burns. Any wound may become infected with a variety of bacteria. A culture helps to determine which type or types of bacteria are causing an infection, and which antibiotic would best treat the infection and help heal the wound.

A culture is performed by collecting a sample of fluid, cells or tissue from the wound and placing it on or in appropriate nutrient media. The media encourages the growth of bacteria that may be present, allowing for further testing and identification. Typically if a person has a wound infection, there will either be a pure culture of the microorganism - only one kind will be found, or one type will predominate. In some cases, for instance with a human or animal bite, there may be several pathogens present. Since wounds may be superficial or involve deep tissue, they may harbour different types of bacteria that have different requirements for growth. Some bacteria infecting a wound may require air for growth (aerobic) while some require a no-oxygen or reduced-oxygen environment (anaerobic or microaerophilic). Care must be taken when handling the samples so that their growth is encouraged and the probability of their detection and identification are optimized.

The next step in the process is to identify the different types of microorganisms present. Identification is a step-by-step process that may involve many tests and evaluations performed on the bacteria found growing in the culture. One such test, the Gram stain, involves smearing individual colony types onto glass slides and treating them with a special stain. Under the microscope, the bacteria can be classified into Gram-positive and Gram-negative organisms and by shape into cocci (spheres) or rods. With this information and additional biochemical tests, the types of bacteria present can be identified.

For many of the pathogens identified in the wound culture, antimicrobial susceptibility testing is required to guide treatment and to determine whether the strain of bacteria present is likely to respond to specific antibiotics. In order to do this, a pure culture (isolate) of the identified bacteria must be available, which may require additional time in the laboratory to separate and identify each bacterial species.  

The wound culture, Gram stain test, and susceptibility testing all contribute to inform the doctor which pathogen(s) are present and what antibiotic therapy is likely to inhibit their growth.

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Common Questions
  • How is it used?

    A bacterial wound culture is primarily requested to help identify the bacteria causing the infection, and to prepare a sample for susceptibility testing where required.

    If a wound culture reveals the presence of significant pathogenic bacteria, a susceptibility test is often performed routinely without it having to be requested by the doctor. This can save time so that antimicrobial therapy can begin as soon as possible.

    Gram stains may be performed on the original sample that is collected for the wound culture. This is done to give the doctor an initial evaluation of the wound - to look for any bacteria that might be present in the original sample. A Gram stain that does not show the presence of bacteria does not rule out a wound infection.

    A wound culture may also sometimes be requested at intervals on a person who has a chronic infection, to help guide further treatment.

    If a fungal infection is suspected, then a fungal culture of the wound specimen may be requested along with the bacterial wound culture. Yeast and some fungi may grow on the same media as bacteria, but many fungi are slow-growing. The media used to recover fungi inhibits bacterial growth but fungal growth may take several days or weeks. Fungal infection does not respond to antibiotics so other antimicrobial agents (antifungals) maybe required to treat the infection.

  • When is it requested?

    This test is primarily requested when a doctor suspects that a wound is infected. It may be repeated if the infection fails to respond to treatment or if there is a chronic wound infection. Some signs and symptoms of an infected wound may include:

    • a wound that is slow to heal
    • heat, redness and swelling at the site
    • tenderness at the site
    • drainage of fluid or pus
    • fever
  • What does the test result mean?

    If pathogenic bacteria are identified in the culture, then it is likely that they are the source of the infection. Often wounds have two or more pathogens (aerobes and/or anaerobes) that may be contributing to the infection. If more than three organisms are present, they may not be identified as individual bacterial species, and the report may refer to them as “mixed bacterial flora.” This may indicate a mixture of normal flora and pathogens from a contaminated sample or from a dirty wound. If there is only normal flora present, then the infection may be due to bacteria normally found on the skin, or the pathogen may have been missed in the sample due to low numbers present, or the infection may be due to another cause.

    Very little growth may still be significant, especially when the wound infection is in an area of the body considered to be essentially sterile – such as the eye.

    If there are no bacteria recovered in the wound specimen, then there may not be a bacterial infection, or the pathogen was not successfully recovered from the sample which may be due to previous antibiotic treatment.

  • Is there anything else I should know?

    Wound culture results may be less typical when the patient has already been treated with antimicrobial drugs and when a patient has a chronic infection.

    Typically if an infection has spread from a wound into the blood and/or organs such as the kidneys, then the same microorganism(s) will be detected in blood and/or urine cultures.

    Washing with soap and warm water and keeping wounds clean is important to preventing infection.

  • Why would my doctor collect more than one sample?

    This may be done to increase the chance of detecting the pathogen or to detect multiple pathogens. It may involve multiple swabs, a combination of swabs, fluid aspiration, and/or tissue biopsy, or distinct aerobic and anaerobic sample collection.

  • Once I have been treated, can my infection return?

    Most infections will resolve, but if there is still damaged tissue present or a break in the skin's protection, then there is the potential for another infection to occur.  In some cases, it may take extended treatment and/or a change in medication to resolve an infection.

  • Why might one person get an infection and another person not?

    Anyone can get a wound infection, but the risk increases with age and with underlying conditions, such as diabetes, conditions that compromise blood flow or conditions or treatments that suppress the immune system.

  • I had a boil on my arm and the doctor did not do a culture of the material when he drained it. Why not?

    In a healthy patient, the clinical presentation may give the doctor sufficient information to treat the patient. With an abscess or boil, the most important treatment is incision and drainage, and antibiotics may not be required. However, if your wound does not heal or it worsens after drainage, you may have an infection with an organism that requires antibiotic therapy tailored to the specific pathogen. In this case, a culture of the wound should be done to identify the pathogen and perform susceptibility testing to predict the best possible antibiotic for clinical response.

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