Swab transport systems for aerobic and anaerobic organism recovery

Saline suspensions of 11 aerobes and anaerobes were used to inoculate swabs from Port-A-Cul (Becton Dickinson), Culturette EZ (Becton Dickinson), and Copan Amies gel (Copan Diagnostics). Swabs were removed from transport devices at 0, 24, and 45 h postinoculation and then extracted by vortexing in 1.0 ml of saline, and organism survival was determined by quantitative plate counts, For the organisms tested, Culturette EZ allowed <1% of the original inocula to be recovered after 24 h. Port-A-Cul was only slightly better, Recovery was best with the Copan gel-containing system, Agar gel swab systems may he useful for multipurpose transport devices.