OBJECTIVES To determine the performance of the FASTPlaqueTB test, based on bacteriophage amplification technology, by comparison with the BACTEC 460 TB culture system, the Löwenstein-Jensen (LJ) medium culture method and Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) staining. METHODS Of 400 sputum specimens studied in our laboratory, 19 were excluded due to contaminant growth. The FASTPlaqueTB test was performed accord...

The BACTEC MGIT 960 system, a fully automated, nonradiometric, noninvasive system for detection and drug susceptibility testing of mycobacteria, was evaluated for the ability to test susceptibilities to second-line drugs. In this study, which was carried out in three phases (phase I, mostly susceptible strains; phase II, mostly resistant strains; phase III, final testing of the optimal drug con...

The Plus Aerobic/F resin bottle of the BACTEC 9240 automated blood culture system (Becton Dickinson Diagnostic Instrument Systems, Sparks, Md.) was compared with aerobic culture of the Isolator system (Wampole Laboratories, Cranbury, N.J.) for the detection of bloodstream microorganisms from 6,145 blood cultures collected from adult patients with suspected septicemia. The BACTEC resin bottles w...

We have read the recent report by Brunello et al. (1) about a comparative study between the MB/BacT and the BACTEC 460 TB systems for recovery of mycobacteria. We have carried out a similar study with 500 clinical specimens (89% respiratory and 24.3% nonrespiratory), and we would like to make some comments. First, like Brunello et al., we did not find any statistically significant differences b...

A 20-ml blood sample was collected from adult patients with suspected bloodstream infections and distributed equally into the four volume-controlled bottles of a blood culture set consisting of aerobic and anaerobic BACTEC Plus/F bottles and aerobic and anaerobic BacT/Alert FAN bottles. All bottles were incubated in their respective instruments for a standard 5-day protocol or until the instrum...

Lysis filtration (LyF) was compared with BACTEC PAEDS PLUS in estimating the prevalence of, and sensitivity for, detection of odontogenic bacteremia. Both real bacteremia and simulated bacteremia (seeded blood or saline samples) were assessed to determine the validity of LyF in estimating bacteremia. The simulated bacteremia was also used to assess the reliability of LyF to estimate intensity o...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical use of a new culture system for the isolation of mycobacteria. Routine clinical specimens were cultured in the Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube, the radiometric Bactec 460 TB system and on Lowenstein Jensen (LJ) medium to compare recovery rates and times for detection of mycobacteria and contamination rates. MGIT was tested for its ability to...

BACTEC 13A medium (Johnston Laboratories, Towson, Md.) was compared with Isolator (Du Pont Co., Wilmington, Del.) concentrate for sensitivity, speed, and technical ease of isolation of mycobacteria from paired patient blood samples. Of 72 positive cultures, 63 were positive by both systems. Five positive cultures were detected by BACTEC 13A medium alone, and four were detected by Isolator alone...

FASTPlaqueTB (Biotec Laboratories Ltd., Ipswich, UK) is a rapid test which utilizes bacteriophage amplification technology for the detection of viable Mycobacterium tuberculosis in clinical specimens. We evaluated performance of the FASTPlaqueTB test by comparing with BACTEC 460 TB culture system (Becton Dickinson Co., Maryland, USA), polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and acid fast bacilli (AFB) ...

Purpose: Since standard microbiological methods (use of solid media) have low sensitivity to detect aetiological agents in vitreous aspirates in infectious endophthalmitis, a comparative study was undertaken to determine sensitivity of BACTEC Peds Plus F broth for isolation of these aetiological agentsMethods: Four hundred and eighty three consecutive vitreous aspirates from clinically diagnose...