Isolation of human genital TRIC agents in nongonococcal urethritis and Reiter's disease by an irradiated cell culture method.

In an earlier study, Ford and McCandlish (1969) isolated TRic agents, by the yolk-sac method, from fifteen of 133 urethral scrapings of men with nongonococcal urethritis. Gordon and Quan (1965) had previously found that TRIC agents would propagate in irradiated McCoy cells and could be readily demonstrated by the resulting inclusions which stained purple with iodine because of their glycogen content. Subsequently, Gordon, Harper, Quan, Treharne, Dwyer, and Garland (1969) considered that the McCoy cell method was more sensitive in addition to being quicker and more convenient than the yolk-sac method in isolating TRic agents from clinical specimens. It therefore seemed advisable to perform an evaluation of the two methods in Vancouver and the following paper describes our results.