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. 1977 Jun;5(6):564–569. doi: 10.1128/jcm.5.6.564-569.1977

Recovery of anaerobic, facultative, and aerobic bacteria from clinical specimens in three anaerobic transport systems.

A G Helstad, J L Kimball, D G Maki
PMCID: PMC274656  PMID: 328525

Abstract

With aspirated specimens from clinical infections, we evaluated the recovery of anaerobic, aerobic, and facultative bacteria in three widely used transport systems: (i) aspirated fluid in a gassed-out tube (FGT), (ii) swab in modified Cary and Blair transport medium (SCB), and (iii) swab in a gassed-out tube (SGT). Transport tubes were held at 25 degrees C and semiquantitatively sampled at 0, 2, 24, and 48 h. Twenty-five clinical specimens yielded 75 anaerobic strains and 43 isolates of facultative and 3 of aerobic bacteria. Only one anaerobic isolate was not recovered in the first 24 h, and then, only in the SGT. At 48 h, 73 anaerobic strains (97%) were recovered in the FGT, 69 (92%) in the SCB, and 64 (85%) in the SGT. Two problems hindered the recovery of anaerobes in the SCB and SGT systems: first die-off of organisms, as evidenced by a decrease in colony-forming units of 20 strains (27%) in the SCB and 25 strains (33%) in the SGT, as compared with 7 strains (9%) in the FGT, over 48 h; and second, overgrowth of facultative bacteria, more frequent with SCB and SGT. The FGT method was clearly superior at 48 h to the SCB and SGT systems in this study and is recommended as the preferred method for transporting specimens for anaerobic culture.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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