PURPOSE To evaluate the utility of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for diagnosing osteoarticular tuberculosis (TB). METHODS Clinical samples (synovial tissue and synovial fluid) obtained from 23 cases of suspected osteoarticular tuberculosis were subjected to Ziehl Neelsen (ZN) smear examination, radiometric BACTEC culture and PCR test for tuberculosis by amplifying 65 kDa antigen co...

The BinaxNOW Staphylococcus aureus testing showed sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predicative values of 97.6%, 100%, 100%, and 98.4%, respectively, for identification of S. aureus from Bactec blood culture broth. Importantly, the test performed equally well on aerobic and anaerobic culture broth.

Bordetella pertussis was isolated from a culture of blood from a 31-year-old man with Wegener's granulomatosis. The organism was detected with the BACTEC 9240 system after 6 days of incubation and was confirmed as B. pertussis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To our knowledge, this is the first published report of the recovery of B. pertussis from blood.

Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 was isolated from antemortem aerobic blood culture bottles not supplemented with L-cysteine or ferric pyrophosphate and from the postmortem lung tissue of a 72-year-old man. We recommend that aerobic blood culture bottles (Johnston Laboratories, Cockeysville, Md.) of BACTEC be subcultured to an agar that supports the growth of L. pneumophila when growth indexe...

The Isolator 1.5 microbial tube (E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc., Wilmington , Del.) was compared with the BACTEC radiometric detection system (Johnston Laboratories, Inc., Cockeysville, Md.) for the detection of bacteremia in children. The Isolator 1.5 is a blood culture system designed for small volumes of blood (0.5 to 1.5 ml). The method involves lysis of the cells of the patient and t...

The reliability of the Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube (MGIT) 960 system for rapid detection of mycobacteria in clinical specimens was evaluated and compared to the radiometric method (BACTEC 460TB) and to mycobacterial culture on Lowenstein-Jensen (LJ) medium. Clinical specimens (n = 590) were tested without selection. A total of 121 (20.5%) isolates of mycobacteria were recovered; 98 (81.0...

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the BACTEC NR-16A and NR-17A media were more effective than the BACTEC NR-6A and NR-7A media in recovering organisms from the blood of patients undergoing antimicrobial therapy. A total of 986 sets of four blood culture bottles were compared, giving 141, 174, 93, and 104 isolates with BACTEC NR-6A, NR-16A, NR-7A, and NR-17A, respectively. BACTE...

The BACTEC PLUS 26 (NR26) (Becton Dickinson, Towson, Md.) high-volume blood culture bottle replaced the less expensive smaller-volume NR6A bottle in our hospital. An audit carried out several months after their introduction revealed that only 17.5% of the NR26 bottles received the required blood volume. Several audits and educational programs were required in order to achieve a compliance rate ...

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) ...