[Use of transport medium in sputum bacterial culture examination of lower airway infection].

Our medical institution does not have a bacterial culture facility, requiring outsourcing of bacterial culture tests. Due to the time elapsed from the time of specimen collection to culturing, the identification of causative bacteria in respiratory tract infections tends to be difficult. We therefore used transport medium for sputum bacteria examinations. Expectorated purulent or purulent-mucous sputum specimens were collected from 32 patients with lower respiratory tract infection. We divided each of the sputum specimens into the two treatment groups: transport medium (Seedswab gamma2) ndar and stad disinfection container. Paired samples prepared from each patient were sent out for bacterial culture together. The time elapsed from collection to delivery to the lab were as follows: day 0 (same day, n = 14 patients), day 1 (n = 15), day 2 (n = 2), and day 3 (n = 1). The identified causative bacteria were Streptococcus pneumoniae (n = 6 patients), Haemophilus influenzae (n =5), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (n = 4), Staphylococcus aureus (n = 2), Moraxella catarrhalis (n = 2), Klebsiella pneumoniae (n = 1), and Streptococcus agalactiae (n = 1). Samples prepared by each of the two methods gave similar results. The utility of transport medium for examination of general bacteria for lower airway infection from sputum samples was not demonstrated. The rate of detection of bacteria decreased, when the transport of samples was delayed. Therefore, we need to send the sputum specimens as quickly as possible.