OBJECTIVES To evaluate the BACTEC(TM) MGIT(TM) 960/MGIT Para TB (MGIT) system for drug susceptibility testing of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP), a pathogen implicated in some forms of Crohn's disease. METHODS MICs of 11 drugs for 10 MAP strains were determined using the MGIT system, the BACTEC(TM)460TB system (BACTEC) and conventional agar dilution methods. RESULTS MICs d...

Two manual liquid medium systems, the Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube (MGIT) and MB Redox tube systems, were evaluated in comparison to the radiometric BACTEC-460 semiautomated system for recovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from sputum specimens. The highest level of recovery, from a total of 77 culture-positive specimens, occurred with the BACTEC-460 system (92.2%), followed by the MB Re...

A group of 89 smear-positive sputum specimens were evaluated by radiometric and standard plate procedures to determine the methodology which would provide the earliest detection of mycobacteria and maximum test sensitivity. Digested non-decontaminated specimens were concentrated and inoculated into modified selective BACTEC radiometric 7H12 broth and Mitchison selective 7H10 agar. Sodium hydrox...

The 10-ml Isolator system (E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc., Wilmington, Del.) was compared with the BACTEC 16A-17A nonradiometric resin system (Johnston Laboratories, Inc., Towson, Md.) for isolation of organisms from 6,839 paired blood cultures. Equal volumes of blood (6 to 10 ml for each Isolator and 3 to 5 ml for each BACTEC bottle) were cultured in parallel in the two systems, and 600 i...

BACKGROUND The increasing problem of multi-drug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB) [ie resistant to at least isoniazid (INH) and rifampicin (RIF)] is becoming a global problem. Successful treatment outcome for MDR-TB depends on reliable and accurate drug susceptibility testing of first-line and second-line anti-TB drugs. METHOD Consecutive M. tuberculosis isolates identified as MDR-TB during A...

During susceptibility testing of 743 isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to pyrazinamide (PZA) using the Bactec 960 system, 57 (7.7%) isolates showed PZA resistance. Repeat testing of resistant isolates with the Bactec 460 reference method confirmed 33 (4.4%) of these isolates as resistant, and 24 (3.2%) were susceptible. Erroneous results for resistance with the Bactec 960 were confirmed by...

OBJECTIVES To determine the performance of the FASTPlaqueTB test, based on bacteriophage amplification technology, by comparison with the BACTEC 460 TB culture system, the Löwenstein-Jensen (LJ) medium culture method and Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) staining. METHODS Of 400 sputum specimens studied in our laboratory, 19 were excluded due to contaminant growth. The FASTPlaqueTB test was performed accord...

The BACTEC MGIT 960 system, a fully automated, nonradiometric, noninvasive system for detection and drug susceptibility testing of mycobacteria, was evaluated for the ability to test susceptibilities to second-line drugs. In this study, which was carried out in three phases (phase I, mostly susceptible strains; phase II, mostly resistant strains; phase III, final testing of the optimal drug con...

The Plus Aerobic/F resin bottle of the BACTEC 9240 automated blood culture system (Becton Dickinson Diagnostic Instrument Systems, Sparks, Md.) was compared with aerobic culture of the Isolator system (Wampole Laboratories, Cranbury, N.J.) for the detection of bloodstream microorganisms from 6,145 blood cultures collected from adult patients with suspected septicemia. The BACTEC resin bottles w...

We have read the recent report by Brunello et al. (1) about a comparative study between the MB/BacT and the BACTEC 460 TB systems for recovery of mycobacteria. We have carried out a similar study with 500 clinical specimens (89% respiratory and 24.3% nonrespiratory), and we would like to make some comments. First, like Brunello et al., we did not find any statistically significant differences b...