Estimating original bacterial loads from delayed clinical samples: A methodological Modeling and empirical validation study

MM-VCM enables efficient preanalytic corrections for bacterial loads, supporting diagnostics where resampling is infeasible (e.g., CSF, high-volume labs). Empirical validation against a multicenter clinical blood culture dataset at 25 °C revealed that model predictions broadly corresponded with observed detection patterns for S. aureus and S. pneumoniae, with greater variability observed for E. coli, supporting the model's potential utility pending further validation.