Survival of genital mycoplasma on various bacteriological swabs and transport media

An approach to diagnostic microbiology necessitates measures which maintain the flora unchanged during the transportation of the specimens to the laboratory, preserving the viability of labile and fastidious organisms such as mycoplasma. Some of these problems have been studied in the present investigation. Five different swabs (untreated, albu, charcoal, alginate and phosphate-buffered albumin) and three transport media (Stuart, Amies and MTB) were examined using genital mycoplasma. Absorbent effect of swabs treated with albumin is lower than all the others while the antimycoplasma activity, due to the toxic substances present in the fiber of tip swab, is always lower for the charcoal swab. Concerning transport media, the most favourable results were obtained with the MTB medium. In this medium M. hominis and U. urealyticum counts decreased about 0.5 log and M. fermentans decreased 1.25 log after seven days at 4 degrees C. Furthermore, after inoculation of mycoplasma, MTB can be frozen at -20 degrees C without greatly modifying the titer. The reasons of the different performance of transport media on mycoplasma survival were discussed.