Cholera laboratory tests
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
Choleria is a severe bacterial gastrointestinal, diarrheal disease. To test for cholera, doctors must take a stool sample or a rectal swab and send it to a laboratory to look for the cholera bacterium.
Lab tests
Stool and swab collected in the acute stage of the disease are useful specimens for laboratory diagnosis. A number of special media have been employed for the cultivation for Cholera vibrios. They are classified as follows:
Holding or transport media
- Venkataraman-ramakrishnan (VR) medium
- Cary-Blair medium: This the most popularly carrying media. This is a buffered solution of sodium chloride, sodium thioglycollate, disodium phosphate and calcium chloride at pH 8.4.
Enrichment media
- Alkaline peptone water at pH 8.6
- Monsur's taurocholate tellurite peptone water at pH 9.2
Plating media
- Alkaline bile salt agar: The colonies are very similar to those on Nutrient Agar.
- Monsur's gelatin Tauro cholate trypticase tellurite agar (GTTA) medium: Cholera vibrios produce small translucent colonies with a greyish black centre.
- TCBS medium: This the mostly widely used medium. This medium contains thiosulphate, citrate, bile salts and sucrose. Also in oysters and lobster in some cases. Cholera vibrios produce flat 2-3 mm in diameter, yellow nucleated colonies.