DOES STORAGE OF SPUTUM SPECIMENS ADVERSELY AFFECT CULTURE RESULTS

It has been recommended that samples submitted for microbiological exa mination should be retained far 48 hours after issue of the final repo rt. In order to ascertain whether reproducible results could be achiev ed following storage of sputum specimens, two laboratories each re-cul tured 100 samples 48 hours after their report had been issued and a fu rther laboratory re-cultured 100 samples 48 hours after receipt, Disco rdant results were obtained in only 5-25% of specimens, indicating tha t potential respiratory pathogens could survive storage.