Evaluation of the fully automated BACTEC MGIT 960 system for testing susceptibility of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to pyrazinamide, streptomycin, isoniazid, rifampin, and ethambutol and comparison with the radiometric BACTEC 460TB method.

The performance of the fully automated BACTEC MGIT 960 (M960) system for the testing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis susceptibility to streptomycin (SM), isoniazid (INH), rifampin (RMP), ethambutol (EMB), and pyrazinamide (PZA) was evaluated with 100 clinical isolates and compared to that of the radiometric BACTEC 460TB (B460) system. The agar proportion method and the B460 system were used as reference methods to resolve the discordant results for SM, INH, RMP, and EMB (a combination known as SIRE) and PZA, respectively. The overall agreements were 96.

Evaluation of the BACTEC MGIT 960 in comparison with BACTEC 460 TB for detection and recovery of mycobacteria from clinical specimens.

The BACTEC MGIT system (M960), a fully automated, non radiometric instrument, designed for rapid detection of acid fast bacilli (AFB) from clinical specimens, was compared with the radiometric BACTEC 460 system (B460) and Löwenstein-Jensen (L-J) solid medium. A total of 1,093 respiratory and extrapulmonary specimens were decontaminated by the NALC-NaOH standard method, and randomly inoculated into the media. A total of 122 mycobacteria were recovered, including 47 Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTB) isolates and 75 nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) isolates.

Evaluation of the DipStreak, a new device with an original streaking mechanism for detection, counting, and presumptive identification of urinary tract pathogens.

DipStreak is a new urine culture device with two types of agar attached back-to-back on a plastic paddle. It combines dip-slide technology and an original streaking inoculation mechanism, allowing for bacterial counting and colony isolation. The performance of the DipStreak device with two different medium formulations, CHROMagar and MacConkey media in study A and UriSelect 3 and MacConkey media in study B, was evaluated and compared to that of the reference streak method by using plates of cystine-lactose-electrolyte-deficient (CLED) agar, tryptic soy agar with 5% sheep blood, and UriSelect 3 medium.