Laboratory Medicine ›› 2015, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (3): 258-261.DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1673-8640.2015.03.014

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

The clinical significance of smear and Gram staining for microscopy before microbial specimens being cultured

ZHANG Guoying, XIA Xuehong   

  1. Department of Clinical Laboratory, Nanjing Hospital of Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine, Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jiangsu Nanjing 210014, China
  • Received:2014-04-01 Online:2015-03-30 Published:2015-04-16

Abstract: Objective

To investigate the clinical significance of microbial specimens being smeared and Gram stained for microscopy before they were cultured .

Methods

A total of 365 clinical specimens with different types of microorganisms were firstly smeared and stained for microscopy, then were inoculated for culture. Finally, the coincidence rate was analyzed.

Results

Among the 365 specimens, there were 211 sputum specimens, 40 urine specimens, 76 secretion specimens and 38 other-type specimens (mainly pus and pleural effusion specimens). Among them, there were 17 unqualified specimens. Of the 348 qualified specimens, 93 cases were cultured positive. The detection results of sputum, urine, secretion and other-type specimens were no statistical significance by the smear microscopy and the culture method. The coincidence rates were 76.6%, 62.5%, 87.1% and 80.0%, respectively (P>0.05).

Conclusions

The smear microscopy can not only check the quality of specimens, but also reduce the result errors of culture, so as to improve the positive rate of specimens by culture. Therefore, it is of great significance in the actual microbiological testing work.

Key words: Smear, Microscopy, Culture, Microbial specimen

CLC Number: