Sample Requirements

Specimen:

• Tissue or Body Fluid: Piece of tissue, preferably 0.5 cm^3,, or 1-3 ml of body fluid are preferred sample types.  
  Note: Swabs are suboptimal for recovery of Mycobacteria due to limited material on the swab and the hydrophobicity of the Mycobacterial cell envelope (can compromise the transfer from swabs onto media). The lab will only accept BD ESwabs in Amies media for AFB culture. Dry swabs are unacceptable and will be rejected due to low yield.
• CSF: Minimum of 3 ml of fluid. Note: AFB culture of CSF requires Infectious Disease approval.
• Expectorated or Induced Sputum: Minimum 3 ml specimen, optimal 5-10 ml. Three consecutive sputum samples should be collected at a minimum of 8 hour intervals.  Include at least one first morning specimen.
• CF Patient's Sputum: minimum of 0.5g (not necessary to collect 3 samples in this patient population)
• Gastric Aspirates: Prior to collecting sample, obtain 50 ml transport tube containing 100mg of Sodium Carbonate from Microbiology Lab (7-2585). Collect fasting gastric aspirate specimen (minimum of 5.0 ml) on 3 consecutive days (24 hours apart).
• Blood or Bone Marrow: See AFB Culture, Blood and Bone Marrow Culture, AFB for sample requirements.
• Urine: Minimum of 40 ml, first morning urine.
• Stool: Only available with ID consultat/approval. Submit 1 gram of stool. Culture is only set up on samples that are AFB stain positive.

Container: Sterile Container

Preferred Vol: See above

Minimum Vol: See above