Comparison of selective medium supplemented with blood & a charcoal-based blood-free medium for primary isolation of campylobacters from human faeces.

A recently developed charcoal-based, blood-free selective medium-charcoal cefoperazone deoxycholate agar (CCDA) was compared with the conventional Butzler's agar (BA) for primary isolation of enteric campylobacters from human stool specimens. CCDA yielded higher percentage (93.6%) of positive isolations as compared to BA (76.6%). The rate of isolation on CCDA was significantly higher (P less than 0.0001) than on BA. Cost-wise also, the CCDA medium was two times cheaper than BA. In addition to Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli, CCDA permitted the recovery of a recently described catalase-negative campylobacters which did not grow on BA. Based on these results the routine use of CCDA is recommended, particularly in developing countries, as blood is not required for this medium.