Spotlight: Respiratory cultures

In this episode of Let’s Talk Micro, we’re revisiting the topic of respiratory cultures — a cornerstone in clinical microbiology. We’ll go over the different types of respiratory specimens, common pathogens recovered, and how to handle yeast when it shows up in cultures. We’ll also cover rejection criteria — when a sample should not be processed — and the pitfalls that can affect interpretation.

Tune in for a practical walkthrough of respiratory culture workups, from specimen processing to recognizing clinically significant organisms and their impact on patient care.

This episode was originally released in 2022.

Article on sputum rejection, as discussed by Dr. Prinzi in this episode: 

https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/jcm.16.4.627-631.1982

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