Comparison of recovery of anaerobic bacteria using the Anoxomat (R), anaerobic chamber, and GasPak (R) jar systems

The Anoxomat(R) system provides an automated evacuation-replacement techniq ue to create an anaerobic or microaerophilic environment in a jar. We evalu ated the Anoxomat(R) system for the growth of obligate anaerobes and for th e recovery of anaerobic organisms from clinical specimens, and compared its performance to that of an anaerobic chamber and the GasPak(R) System. Of t he 54 stock strains tested, the Anoxomat(R), the chamber, and the GasPak(R) recovered 95%, 95% and 93% at 24 h, respectively. On 29 occasions (51%), t he colonies on the Anoxomat(R) plates were slightly larger than those in th e chamber and on 17 (30%) occasions larger than the colonies on the GasPak( R) jar plates. At 48 h, the Anoxomat(R) the chamber, and the GasPak(R) reco vered 93.5%, 94.4% and 88.9%, respectively; of 108 anaerobes isolated from 31 clinical specimens. Methylene blue indicators became decolorized (averag e of 10 tests) within 2 h inside the Anoxomat(R) jars, 2 h 10 min inside th e anaerobic chamber, and 2 h 30 min inside the GasPak(R) jars. (C) 1999 Aca demic Press.