COMPARISON OF

CULTURING MEDIA USE

IN TUBERCULOSIS
SCREENING
 Tuberculosis common and often deadly
disease, mainly caused by Mycobacterium
tuberculosis.
 Diagnosis started with screening test
 AFB direct smear and culturing method is
the standard way of screening TB.
 Most common media(egg-based) used in
Malaysia
 Lowenstein-Jensen media(used before)

 OGAWA(now replacing LJ media)

 OGAWA culture media is better than
Lowenstein-Jensen media in terms of
cost, growth rate and contamination rate.

 OGAWA is suitable to be used in high-

burden lab
Even we have variety of diagnosing
method for TB, culturing method is
needed as it is cheap even if it took a bit
longer time for the mycobacterium to
growth. AFB direct smear cannot detect
the presence of the bacilli if the amount of
the bacteria are still low. Culturing
method allowing us to look the growth of
the bacteria even if it is still in a small
quantity.
 As we cannot have two type of media
used for culturing at the same time, data
for Ogawa media is taken from middle of
April until early of July 2008 which
comprises of 279 positive smear sample
and 234 negative smear sample.
 For LJ media, data is taken during the
time this media was used before being
replaced with Ogawa media. Number of
sample is as same as number of sample
culture on Ogawa. Data taken from year
2000.
Basic ingredient:
 Mineral salt solution
 Malachite green dye
 Homogenized eggs

For mineral salt solution and malachite

green dye, it has its own constituent to
form that solution. Glycerol is the basic
ingredient for Ogawa while in LJ, it is the
constituent of mineral salt solution
 Ingredient OGAWA LJ
Mineral salt KH2PO4 KH2PO4
solution Sodium glutamate MgSO4.7H2O

Distilled H20 Glycerol

Magnesium citrate

Malachite green Malachite green dye Malachite

Asparaginegreen dye
dye sterile distilled
Distilled H O H 20
2
Glycerol Used
sterile distilled H20 Already contain
inside the minerals
solution
 By looking at the constituent of Ogawa and
LJ, there is a different where Ogawa only
contain sodium glutamate while LJ contain
MgSO4.7H2O, glycerol, magnesium citrate
and asparagine
 Other than that differences, they both
contain distilled water and
Potassium dehydrogen phosphate
anhydrous
 Found here that, LJ need a lot of ingredient
compared to Ogawa. This is why we need
more cost on LJ media 
 Growth rate is high for LJ compared to
Ogawa for negative smear sample
 Growth rate is higher on Ogawa compared to
LJ which is up to 3.3% of difference.
 For the contamination rate after inoculation
using negative smear sample, there is only
slightly different between them.
 There is 3.6% difference of contamination
rate where Ogawa showing 6.3%
contamination while LJ showing 10%
contamination.
 Higher contamination rate in LJ may due to
the digestion and decontamination process.
 Growth is higher in Ogawa because of the
content of higher concentration of glycerol in
the ingredient.
 Ogawa are cheaper than LJ as it contain less
ingredient compared to LJ.
 The culturing and smear itself cannot really
diagnosing the M.tuberculosis.
 To determine this mycobacterium, we need a
combination test and also need to look at the
medical history of the patient including the
x-ray on chest.
 Objective achieved as there are comparable
evidence that support the objectives.
 Hypothesis accepted.
 Ogawa media is better than LJ in terms of
cost, growth rate and contamination rate.