-Prize is valid from 6 months from date of draw.
Therefore, we compiled a best-estimate-date, defined as the date of draw, and if this date was missing, the date of receipt (Table 1).
The date of draw was available for 21,907 of the 24,028 positive blood cultures (91.2%), whereas the date of receipt was available for all blood cultures.
Finally, the laboratory data had some flaws: lack of date of draw for some blood cultures, recording of time of draw and receipt of the blood cultures only by date (and not hour and minute), no possibility to categorize blood culture sets from specimen identification numbers, and lack of speciation of a few microorganisms.
Sera from 150 cases and 314 controls matched on date of blood draw, age at blood draw, and region was used to determine concentrations of 11 OC pesticide metabolites and 34 PCB congeners.
We used conditional logistic regression matched on date of blood draw, age at blood draw, and region to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs), and used the MIANALYZE procedure in SAS, version 9.2 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA), to obtain the appropriate variance for imputed data.
It has also been observed from the work to date that the speed of drawing plays an interesting role, in so far as, the higher is the speed the further is the draw, which is not entirely as expected.
We were able to identify CRP measurements, including exact date, hour, and minute of drawing the CRP specimen, for 5449 (95.1%) of 5730 bacteremia patients.
Cases and controls were matched on date of blood draw (1-year strata), age at blood draw (2-year strata), and region (Finnmark, Oslo, Sogn og Fjordane, or Oppland).
