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Poster Session II: Antimicrobial resistance

(P172) EVALUATION OF URETHRAL GONORRHEA CULTURE YIELD USING THE BD BBL CULTURE TRANSPORT SYSTEM, FINDINGS FROM COLORADO SURRG, 2023-2024

Wednesday, September 18, 2024
4:15 PM - 5:15 PM EST
Background:
The Colorado Strengthening the United States Response to Resistant Gonorrhea (SURRG) project uses several different gonorrhea (GC) culture methods. Little is known about the comparative yield of different culture systems. Here, we evaluate the difference in GC culture yield at the male urethra comparing direct inoculation of JEMBEC plates to use of Beckton Dickenson (BD) BBL CultureSwab.

Methods:
This was a retrospective study evaluating male urethral GC culture yield using two different collection systems. From January to June 2023, GC culture was performed by direct inoculation of JEMBEC plates (JEM). From November to February 2024, cultures were collected using BD BBL CultureSwabs (BBL) stored at room temperature and transferred to JEMBEC plates the next day. Comparisons of culture yield were conducted using a Chi-Square test. Analysis was stratified by culture collection time from positive GC nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) (same day or delayed).

Results:
The study included 85 male urethral cultures collected by JEM and 34 collected by BBL. When GC culture was collected the same-day as a GC positive NAAT, culture yield was 94.7% (71/75; 95% CI: 89.6-99.8%) for JEM and 96.6% (28/29; 95% CI: 89.9-100%) for BBL. When culture collection was delayed from positive GC NAAT, yield was 80% (95% CI: 55.2-100%) for JEM (8/10) and 80% (95% CI: 44.9-100%) for BBL (4/5). There was no statistically significant difference in culture yield between the two culture collection systems, irrespective of culture collection time (p > 0.05).

Conclusion:
Despite a small sample size, our findings suggest that the BD BBL CultureSwab is an effective option for collecting male urethral GC cultures. Use of the BD BBL CultureSwab may reduce provider training needed for direct plate inoculation, eliminate the need for onsite incubators and thereby expand settings where cultures can be collected.