University of Wisconsin–Madison

BACTEC

A commercial system sld by BD diagnostics for detection of mycobacteria in samples. The basis of the system is growth of mycobacteria in a liquid culture medium called MGIT ParaTB Medium. Mycobacteria grow and consume oxygen in the sealed tube. An instrument, known as a BACTEC MGIT 960, measures the amount of oxygen in each sealed tube hourly as an indicator of whether bacterial growth has occurred. If mycobacteria are detected by the BACTEC MGIT system, further testing is required to determine exactly what species of mycobacteria has been isolated from the sample. The MGIT 960 incubates and reads 960 cultures. The incubation period is typically 49 days.