What is a Bacteria Culture Test?
What is a Bacteria Culture Test?Bacteria are one-celled organisms. There are many different kinds of bacteria. They live just about everywhere in your body and on your skin. Some types of bacteria are harmless or even helpful. Others can cause infections and disease.
A bacteria culture test can help find harmful bacteria in or on your body that may be making you sick. To do the test, you will need to give a sample of your blood, urine, skin, or other tissue. The type of sample depends on where the infection seems to be located.
To find out what type of bacteria you may have, a health care professional will need to examine a large number of bacteria cells. So, your sample will be sent to a lab where the bacteria cells will be grown until there are enough for the test. Test results are often ready within a few days. But some types of bacteria grow slowly, so sometimes your results may take several days or longer.
Why do I need a bacteria culture test?
Your provider may order a bacteria culture test if you have symptoms of a bacterial infection. The symptoms vary, depending on the type of infection.
Why do I have to wait so long for my results?
Bacteria culture tests require a large number of cells to accurately identify what type of bacteria may be causing an infection. Most test samples don't include enough cells for that. So your sample is sent to a lab to allow the cells to grow until there are enough to test. Most disease-causing bacteria will be ready for testing within one to two days, but some types of bacteria take five days or longer to grow enough cells.
Will I need to do anything to prepare for the test?
There are many different types of bacteria culture tests. Ask your provider if you need to do anything to prepare for your test.
Are there any risks to the test?
There are no known risks to having a swab or blood test or to providing a urine or stool sample.
What do the results mean?
If harmful bacteria are found in your sample, it usually means you have a bacterial infection. Your provider may order more tests to confirm the diagnosis or to see how serious the infection is.
Your provider may also order a test to find out which medicine will work best to treat the type of bacteria you have. This test is called an antibiotic sensitivity test or a susceptibility test. It checks to see how sensitive the bacteria are to different antibiotic medicines.
Is there anything else I should know about a bacteria culture?
If your results show you don't have a bacterial infection, you should not take antibiotic medicines. Antibiotics only treat bacterial infections. Taking antibiotics when you don't need them won't help you feel better and may lead a serious problem known as antibiotic resistance.
Antibiotic resistance allows harmful bacteria to change in a way that makes antibiotics less effective or not effective at all. This can be dangerous to you and your community, because antibiotic-resistant bacteria can spread to others.
Consumables supplier for Bacteria culture:
Geneture medical specialized in the field of nucleic acid extraction system, PCR detection system and laboratory consumables, main products involved in：
1.Auto nucleic Acid Extractor （32T, 96T）
2.PCR fluorescence quantitative analyzer (16T, 96T)
3.Nucleic Acid Extraction Kit (Magnetic beads method)
4.Lab consumables: deep well plate, mag-rod sleeve, pipette tips, VTM, swabs, PCR tubes, PCR plate, centrifuge tubes, cryogenic Vials, saliva collection, cell culture dish/flask/plate/tube and so on.
Please don’t hesitate to contact with us to get a quotation.