Collection, handling, and transport of clinical specimens for microbiological testing
Step-by-step nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swab collection, how deep the swab should go and how to tell, which swabs are unacceptable, and how to store the specimen so the resul...
Blood Collection Tubes: Significance of Color Coding
Compare cotton, calcium alginate, Dacron, rayon, and nylon flocked swabs, and see which swab and shaft to use for each specimen type, from throat and wound to pertussis and GC cult...
How liquid Amies transport systems like eSwab let one collection serve culture, Gram stain, and PCR, which formats exist, and the specimens they are not suitable for.
Microbiology Sample Collection Guidelines and Rejection Criteria
Sample Collections for Lab Diagnosis of Fungal Infections
What is in viral transport medium and why, how it differs from universal transport medium and bacterial media like Amies, correct storage temperatures, and the freezing mistake tha...
Why a fragile gonococcus swab can die before it ever reaches the lab, the design fix that made Amies better than Stuart's medium, and when to choose the charcoal-free version inste...
Pus Sample: Collection, Processing, Staining and Culture
Complete guide to laboratory diagnosis of intestinal parasites — stool collection, O&P examination, concentration techniques, permanent stains, culture, serology, and PCR with a de...
Alkaline Peptone Water (APW) is the standard enrichment broth for Vibrio cholerae isolation. Learn its pH selectivity principle, why vibrios form a pellicle at the surface, how to...
Cary-Blair is the medium of choice for transporting enteric pathogens including Vibrio cholerae, Salmonella, Shigella, and Campylobacter. Learn its principle, semisolid composition...
Which transport medium to reach for depending on the suspected organism, why there's no single universal choice, and links to the full mechanism of each.
Urine Sample Collection and Processing for the Diagnosis of UTI
Why three of the most feared meningitis pathogens die within hours outside the CSF, and the one venting decision that's easy to reverse by mistake when a sample has to travel.
