ORIGINAL ARTICLR

COMPARISON BETWEEN MYCOBACTERIA GROWTH INDICATOR TUBE (MGIT), BACTEC 460 TB SYSTEM AND LOWENSTEIN-JENSEN MEDIUM FOR DETECTION OF MYCOBACTERIUM TUBERCULOSIS

By
Mohamed El Bohy,¹ Hesham Raafat,¹ Faten Aly,² Mohamed Abd El-Aziz^3
1Chest department, Ain Shams University, ² Microbiology department, Al-Abbasseia Chest Hospital,
³ Chest department, Al-Abbasseia Chest Hospital, Egypt

Background: Diagnosis of sputum negative pulmonary tuberculosis is a major health problem. So, the emergence of new techniques for more precise and rapid microbiological identification of mycobacterium tuberculosis in clinical samples is of great importance to improve the tuberculosis management outcome worldwide. Patient and Methods: Sputum and or BAL samples were collected from 150 patients of suspected pulmonary TB, all were cultured on solid medium (Lowenstein-Jensen) and on liquid media (BACTEC 460 and MGIT).

Results: Out of the 150 samples, only 30 were culture positive. The positive specimens for L-J media, BACTEC 460, and MGIT were 16 (53.3%), 25 (83.3%), and 24 (80%) respectively. There was a statistical significance (P<0.05) between both liquid media and L-J media. By combining 2 medias together, the culture positive combinations were 28 (93.3%) for L-J + MGIT (combination A), 28 (93.3%) for L-J + BACTEC 460 (combination B), and 29 (96.6%) for BACTEC 460 + MGIT (combination C), with no statistical difference between them. The time to detection (TTD) was highly statistically significant between both liquid media and L-J media (P<0.01).

Conclusion: The use of liquid media (BACTEC 460 and MGIT) is more accurate and rapid method for diagnosis of smear negative pulmonary tuberculosis, the combination of more than one media is highly recommended for rapid and precise diagnosis.

Keywords: Tuberculosis, Rapid detection, BACTEC, MGIT.

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