Recovery of Mycoplasma hominis from blood culture media

Although several workers have demonstrated that Mycoplasma hominis is responsible for 2 to 20% of cases of septicaemia, reports from Britain do not support this premise--possibly because many of the blood culture systems used fail to sustain growth of this organism. Previous work suggests that this is probably due to the inhibitory effects of sodium polyanethol sulphonate (Liquoid) on M. hominis. In an extension of an in-vitro evaluation of blood culture systems, gelatin was shown to give some protection against the inhibitory effect of polyanethol sulphonate on M. hominis. Of 20 systems evaluated, Becton Dickinson's Supplemented Peptone Broth in their Vacutainer collection system was the most successful at recovering M. hominis.