Comparison of four culture systems for Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the Zambian National Reference Laboratory.

摘要: SETTING: National TB Reference Laboratory, Zambia. OBJECTIVE: To compare four culture systems when used in a resource-limited setting. DESIGN: Comparison of systems: automated Mycobacterium Growth Indicator Tube (AMGIT) 960, manual MGIT (MMGIT) and two Lowenstein-Jensen (LJ) media-commercial (CLJ) homemade (HLJ). RESULTS: A total 1916 sputum specimens were received, which 261 (13.6%) positive on microscopy. tuberculosis complex (MTC) was isolated at least one the media 410 (21.4%) specimens: MMGIT recovered 336 (17.5%) MTC, AMGIT 329 (17.2%), CLJ 192 (10.0%) HLJ 184 (9.6%). The median time to detection for smear-negative 14 days AMGIT, 16 34 both LJ. Isolation non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) more frequent (3.5%) than (0.9%) (0.8%). Contamination rates high: 29.6% 23.8% MMGIT, 14.9% 12.5% HLJ. CONCLUSION: Despite high contamination rates, either system considerably improved yield MTC compared LJ media. Investments infrastructure training are needed if is be scaled up low-income settings such as this.