Abstract

Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube System (MGIT) is a new liquid medium system developed of mycobacteria forculture and susceptibility testing has been developed. Between November 2000 and May 2001, sputum samples of 22 smear negative pulmonary tuberculosis patients were cultured in Löwenstein – Jensen (L-J) solid media and MGIT. The rate of recovery of acid-fast bacilli (AFB) and the mean time of their detection from sputum of these two media were compared. Rates of recovery of mycobacteria were 31.8% and 27.2% for MGIT and L-J media, respectively. The mean time of detection were 13.28 days for MGIT, whereas 27.33 days for L-J media. While there is no statistically significant difference for the rate of recovery of AFB between two medias (p=0.9968; >0.05), the mean time of detection for MGIT was statistically shorter than that for LJ (p=0.028; <0.05). As a conclusion MGIT is a suitable, rapid, sensitive, efficient and nonradiometric method for the recovery of mycobacteria. We believe that it may be used routinely with LJ.