Table 1.
Comparison of culture and molecular identification methods.
| Culture methods | Molecular methods | |
|---|---|---|
| Specificity | Moderate | High |
| Sensitivity | Low | High |
| Antimicrobial susceptibility | Isolates can be tested for susceptibility to relevant antibiotics | Allows the detection of some resistance markers without isolation/culturing |
| Amount needed to detected pathogens | High | Low |
| Time to obtain results | Long (especially for slow-growers organisms) | Short |
| Cost | Low | High (variable) |
| Detection of non-viable bacteria (patient in antibiotic treatment) | No | Yes |
| Equipment | Requires non-specialized equipment | Requires specialized equipment |
| Biosafety | Potential biosafety concerns | Minimizes biosafety concerns |
| Feasibility | Requires basic training No specialized workflow required |
Requires advanced training Assays may not be commercially available |
| Others | Allows visual inspection of colony morphology Allows biochemical characterization of phenotype Limited potential for false positives and/or false negatives |
Allows high resolution analysis Potential false positives (by cross-reaction with closely related species or contaminated amplicons) Potential false negatives (by inhibition components or target mutations) |
Adapted from (Dolinger and Jacobs, 2011).