Rapid diagnosis of mycobacterial infections is essential to provide appropriate antimicrobial therapy. Automated, non-radiometric culture detection systems have focused on maximizing mycobacterial recovery from clinical specimens and minimizing the time to detection. We compared mycobacterial recovery rates and the time required for detection between the MGIT 960 (MGIT) and the BacT/Alert MB (MB) automated culture systems. Both systems and an LJ slant were inoculated with aliquots from the same specimen in parallel and incubated 6 weeks. A total of 622 clinical specimens were tested in parallel: 376 from non-sterile body sites and 246 from sterile body sites.

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