45-year-old female complains of lower abdominal pain and vaginal discharge. On examination, there is cervicitis along with a mucopurulent cervical discharge. The Gram smear of the discharge shows presence of abundant pus cells, but no bacteria. The best approach to isolate the possible causative agent would be:
Patient is complaining of abdominal pain and vaginal discharge. On examination, cervicitis and mucopurulent discharge is seen—which indicates she is having PID. The presence of pus cells in absence of organism indicates chlamydial infection (most common STD today). It is an intracellular organism that grows only on McCoy or HeLa cell cultures. It cannot be grown on other media and hence, often goes unnoticed, later leading to infertility.
Culture in Mc Coy cells is 100% specific for chlamydia but is inexpensive, technically difficult and takes 3-7 days to obtain the result.
Culture on chocholate agar supplemented with hemin
Culture on McCoy cells
Culture on a bilayer human blood agar
Culture on Vero cell lines