A serum-free medium for testing fermentation reactions in Neisseria gonorrhoeae

Gonococcal infections can no longer be considered exclusively urogenital but it is difficult in a busy routine laboratory to identify gonococci from non-genital sites, especially if other commensal neisseria are present. Unfortunately, conventional serum agar sugars sometimes give equivocal results. A fermentation medium is described for the identification of gonoccoci. On preliminary testing this medium gives rapid and reliable results and should prove to be much more helpful to the routine laboratory than conventional serum agar sugars. Its potential usefulness, as demonstrated by the results of our first 200 examinations, would seem to justify further study in the routine work of other laboratories.