Search | Site Map | Home

Culture, other
	Are quantitative tissue cultures still viewed as useful? I read that a regular culture combined with a pathologist-reviewed microtome is currently more favoured. (answered 05/25/2007)
	Our CSF culture protocol includes aerobic culture, gram stain, and Cryptococcal antigen. Is there documentation for not performing repeat Cryptococcal antigens on multiple specimens? What is an acceptable time interval between repeat testing? Thanks! (answered 05/17/2007)
	We culture water from several "environmental" sources (chemistry instruments, histology reagent water, etc.), and are holding plates for 72 hours before reporting as negative. It's been this way for so long that we cannot remember where the 72 hour time fram came from. Is there any documentation for this? Do you think 48 hours would be sufficient? (answered 05/17/2007)
	Is it appropriate to culture surgical hardware (e.g. metal screws) that has been removed? If so, what technique should be used? (answered 04/05/2007)
	which part of a central venous catheter do you send for tip culture and what length of catheter is required to have an accurate result? (answered 04/03/2007)
	Is use of CEM (Cetrimide-esculin-mannitol) agar in clinical microbiology a recommended practice by anyone? I have inherited responsibility for a lab that traditionally has used CEM as one of the primary culture media set up with routine bacteriology cultures on wounds and urines. The staff indicate it was a recommendation from a presenter at a workshop a number of years ago. (answered 03/19/2007)
	Can you explain the method of choice for catheter tip culture and interpretation of the growth?. Any growth is significant, pure or mixed and the colony number, Please expalain. (answered 03/09/2007)
	Should a culture from a diagnosis of conjunctivitis growing Pseudomonas aeruginosa be called to the physician? Or only cultures with the diagnosis of kerititis growing Pseudomonas aeruginosa? (answered 11/24/2006)
	Is there a procedure for increasing the recovery of bacterial pathogens from swab specimens? (answered 11/21/2006)
	Our Chemistry department recently switched to lithium heparin tubes (from sodium heparin tubes). We had been collecting misc fluids, whole blood and bone marrow in the sodium heparin tubes for bacterial, AFB and fungal cultures. Is the lithium heparin tube an acceptable alternative? I heard somewhere that lithium is toxic to bacteria, fungus and afb? (answered 11/08/2006)
	Is it necessary to quantitate bacteria by gram stain before inoculating on to the media? (answered 10/12/2006)
	I occasionally get a request to culture devices such as pins,sutures and portacaths. Is there any reference available as to why these items are not suitable for culture? (answered 08/10/2006)
	Is there a standard CSF protocol? What are they palted to, how are they incubated, and how long are theplates/thio kept? (answered 05/17/2006)
	CAN YOU SUGGEST A PROTOCOL FOR PROCESSING CHRONIC AMBULATORY PERITONEAL DIALYSIS SPECIMENS? (answered 05/11/2006)
	I am looking at a lab report from the culture of a port-a-cath tip, and for the final report it says, "bacillus species in thio broth only." I gather that thio broth is one of the growth mediums used in the lab for cultures, but I don't understand the significance of the final report. Does that mean the cath tip was considered infected? (answered 04/20/2006)
	What consitutes a sterile body fluid. I know pleural fluid, synovial fluid, peritoneal fluid and pericardial fluid are sterile is there anything else other than CSF and blood. What about abdominal fluid...is that the same as peritoneal fluid? Thanks for your help. (answered 03/30/2006)
	Is there a procedure for working up and reporting breast milk cultures? How should you report out enterococcus on a breast milk culture? Should it be reported out as enterococcus or should it be counted along with the mixed cutanous flora thats there. (answered 01/25/2006)
	What is the best way to culture bone marrows, whether its for routine, fungal, or AFB? (answered 01/19/2006)
	One of my ID physicians requested that all csf be cytospun for gram stain. The problem is that we barely have enough to do all the tests that are requested.What is the recommended protocol to process csf gram stains. Thanks. (answered 11/28/2005)
	Proper culture techniques for placenta cultures? (answered 11/10/2005)
	Physicians at our hospital have recently started collecting fluid specimens, other than joint and peritoneal fluid ,in blood culture bottles for transport to the lab. Is this an acceptable method of collecting an transporting these types of specimens? Can an anaerobic blood culture bottle be considered acceptable as an anaerobic transport sytem for body fluid specimens? (answered 11/07/2005)
	Our lab occassionally get request to culture gastric aspiratetes from infants with aim to see if the infant has an infection, or sometimes to look for colonization.I could not find any recent literature that would convince me this is good specimen for either, and I am keen to discontinue further culturing of gastric aspirates for that purpose. I would appreciate your oppinion on this metter.Thank you. (answered 08/22/2005)
	TOPIC: USUALLY STERILE FLUIDS BLOOD CULTURE BOTTLES CONTAINING SUBSTANCES WHICH ARE ALLLEGED TO INACTIVATE ANTIBIOTICS ARE AVAILABLE. iT SEEMS REASONABLE TO INOCULATE SUCH A BOTTLE WITH USUALLY STERILE BODY FLUIDS SUCH AS SYNOVIAL OR THORACENTESIS FLUID.iF THE PATIENT HAD TAKEN AN ANTIBIOTIC PRIOR TO THE TIME OF FLUID ASPIRation, this might be the only way to find the causative agent. any references available to support or contradict such a protocol? blood culture bottles are probabaly not fda approved for other fluids. thus are there any legal issues which would contradict, even if good references advocating such a protocol exist? (answered 08/17/2005)
	What is the optimal method for collection and transport of synovial fluid for culture? Microbiology references indicate that heparin and EDTA can inhibit bacterial growth. Some general references report that specimen can be collected in heparinized syringe and placed in heparin vacutainer tube and still be used for culture. Do have any recommendations or references in this area? (answered 07/25/2005)
	I have been asked to join a clinical study on biofilm formation on central venous catheters in vivo. I will be doing the microbial identification and quantification. The catheters will be from hospital patients from approximately 20 different hospitals in the USA. I would like to know the best method to use to transport the catheters to my lab. What transport media would I use to transport the specimens to our lab? Is there a validated method and/or transport media to use? (answered 07/19/2005)
	What is a Jackson Pratt catheter and how should material be collected form these catheters and how should cultures be interpreted? Thanks (answered 04/28/2005)
	I want to set up an "approved" method for culturing pharmacy IV fluids. I wanted to use BacTalert aerobic bottles but I can't get any info from my Biomerieux rep. I guess it is not anapproved method. What is the recommended procedure for culturing pharmacy IV fluids? I want to avoid procedures where external contamination is more likely than inoculating a BacTalert bottle. Thanks! (answered 02/25/2005)
	My question concerns the most appropriate culturing techniques for 2 types of specimens: 1. Stents- with increased use of these we are receiving more and more for culture when they are removed. Currently we add a small amount of broth media to the container in which the stent is submitted, agitate the broth and plate the broth as a “surgical” specimen that should be sterile. 2. Port-a-Caths – if only a portion of the catheter tip is submitted we treat is as a vascular tip culture which is rolled on a blood agar plate for quantiation of growth. The question is what to do when the complete PAC is submitted. Should the physician always cut off a piece of the catheter and submit it separately for vascular tip culture? Should the remainder of the PAC be dissected and material between the disk and metal portion of the apparatus be processed as a separate culture? I would appreciate feedback from other microbiologists on the best way to deal with these. Thank you. (answered 02/23/2005)
	does oral antibiotics affect csf culture (answered 02/04/2005)
	Between physiological saline and thioglycolate, which medium is better for homogenizing bone or tissue samples for microbiological culture? (answered 12/18/2004)
	What type of culture workup should be done on jejeunal aspirates? (answered 11/29/2004)
	What is appropriate sensitivity reporting for eye pathogens? Conjunctival vs corneal? (answered 10/05/2004)
	We are currently using a cytospin centrifuge to prepare spinal fluids for prossessing. It is an old cytocentrifuge which often needs repair. We also have a regular centrifuge. I am wondering if a regular centrifuge is sufficient to properly prepare spinal fluid since the goal is to concentrate any organisms that may be present. I myself prefer using a regular centrifuge which a used at a previous laboratory. Ed Sklut, Southcoast Hospitals (answered 09/24/2004)
	Please advise on the best way to process continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis fluid for culture. Is centrifugation plus "washing" of the sediment still recommended? (answered 09/07/2004)
	Regarding grinding of tissues for aerobic/anaerobic culture: I was trained long ago to grind tissues with small amount of sterile broth or saline, and use that for inoculation of media. We often get rather large pieces of tissue for culture, and rather that mess with the grinding process, these are sometimes just covered with large volumes of sterile broth, then subcultured to plates after overnight incubation. Along the same line, we may get very tiny core biopsies which are placed into a tube of enrichment broth, rather than being ground and plated. I know fungal cultures should not be ground, but for routine aerobic/anaerobic bacteria, are we potentially missing pathogens that may be lurking within the tissues, if the grinding is skipped? Or am I being overly obsessive and too hesitant to give up my old ways? Should I insist than all tissues be ground prior to inoculation? (answered 08/05/2004)
	Preliminary Culture Reporting Guidelines: We are a small hospital laboratory and currently we issue preliminary culture reports at 24 hours for all cultures. We have had a few instances where there has been a discrepancy between the preliminary report and the final culture results. (eg. A preliminary report of >100,000 CFU/ml Gram Negative Organism was issued for a urine culture. At final examination it was found that the isolate was actually Lactobacillus.) Our Pathologist has asked me to investigate discontinuing issuing preliminary culture reports and only issuing final reports. I always thought that preliminary culture reports were a part of standard microbiology culture procedure, but I can not seem to find a standard regarding the issuing of preliminary culture reports. Is there a written standard regarding issuing preliminary culture reports? If not, what is your recommendation? Thank you! (answered 06/03/2004)
	I am looking for a procedure to culture opened ophthalmic solution bottles/vials for bacterial contaminants. Many of these contain preservatives.  (answered 05/28/2004)
	We have repeatedly isolated klebsiella from CSF of an infant(3months old) for over 45days. The isolate is multidrugresistant,the child is currently on ceftizoxime and amikacin,is neurologically improving but the organism has not cleared completely.The baby has already been on several antibiotics.What could be the problem? (answered 03/23/2004)
	Is it incorrect to report only the presence/absence of polymorphonuclear cells in a Gram stain of CSF that has been cytospun? We have had noted discrepancies between our semi-quantitative results and our Haematology cell counts. (answered 10/20/2003)
	what is the common bacteria isolated from a patient with mandibular fracture? (answered 07/30/2003)
	Are there guidelines available for the processing of blood products after a patient has a transfusion reaction? Should a Gram stain be performed? (answered 05/22/2003)
	What is the recommended incubation time for routine skin and soft tissue cultures for bacterial testing? Are 48h incubation time acceptable? (answered 05/08/2003)
	What is the recommended incubation time for csf cultures for bacterial testing? (answered 03/21/2003)
	on what cultures should a thio broth be set. we currently set them on body fluids such as peitoneal or bronch washes. (answered 11/04/2002)
	What are the current guidelines on doing catheter tip cultures, media used, and report methods. Having attended the ASM Seminars on biofilms, it was emphasized that the Maki is outdated. We have an infectious disease physician who wants just about everything we grow on tips from his patients worked up, no matter quantity!  (answered 09/10/2002)

back to Archive Index