Question

You have been told to obtain a sputum sample and to perform microbiological staining in order to determine the identity of the pathogen causing a patient’s illness. You first perform a Gram stain, but upon microscopic analysis you visualize a mixture of pink and purple bacilli. Explain the type of testing that was used (phenotypic, immunologic, or genotypic) and describe an advantage and disadvantage of this approach.

Answer 1

It is a type of immunological testing. Various respiratory tract infection can be determined by examining sputum sample . It is easy method of infection analysis. But the sample will possess commensal organism of mouth which is difficult to distinguish between organism that cause infection and non pathogenic strain. Pretreatments will be essential before sputum analysis to inhibit contaminants and grow the actual infectious strain. Gram stain helpsin identifying morphology of organism weather is Gram positive or Gram negative. Gram positive appear purple coloured and Gram negative appear pink coloured . It also helps to find the shape weather coccu, bacilli, spiral or coma shaped.