Influence of the three factors on sputum culture results

Objective To analyze the effect of positive grade of sputum,treatment status and storage time of sputum to the outcome of sputum culture,and to provide reference for clinical sputum culturing.Methods The sputum culture data from the Fourth People's Hospital of Lianyungang City between January and October in 2011 were analyzed.Results The influences of positive grade of sputum,treatment status and storage time of sputum towards culture result were analyzed among 611 sputum samples cultured from the laboratory.The results revealed that the storage time of sputum influenced the smear positive-culture negative rate and contamination rate significantly.In addition,the positive grade of sputum,treatment of patients only played a significant effect on smear positive-culture negative rate rather than contamination rate.Conclusion The basic laboratories should improve the quality of sputum samples when carrying out clinical diagnosis,and the culture process is required to be completed in 3 days after collection of sputum.In addition,it was necessary to improve the culture method for sputum of low positive grade and from re-treated patients in order to obtain ideal culture results.