Reprocessing of Contaminated MGIT 960 Cultures to Improve Availability of Valid Results for Mycobacteria

• Main Authors: Balaji Subramanyam, Gomathi Sivaramakrishnan, Devi Sangamithrai, Rajkumar Ravi, Kannan Thiruvengadam, Vaishnavi Vijayaragavan, Ayswarya Selvaraju, Srikanth Prasad Tripathy, Rajesh Mondal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2020-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Microbiology
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2020/1721020

Optimal recovery of mycobacteria from the contaminated liquid culture is a challenge. While alternative methods have been suggested to reduce the rate of contamination in the BACTEC MGIT 960 system, reprocessing the contaminated liquid culture improves recovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Among 793 MGIT cultures raised from as many sputum specimens after primary decontamination by the standard NaLC-NaOH method, valid results were available for 687 (86.6%) as 106 (13.4%) were contaminated. Reprocessing and reculturing of the contaminated cultures increased valid results to 739 (93.2%) and reduced the contamination rate to 6.8%. Both values were statistically significant. Recovery of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex increased from 45.6% to 48.4%. Valid negative results were available for an additional 3.4%. The method may be adopted to reduce the rate of contamination and to improve the valid culture results for mycobacteria.