scope:

Introduction

In mycobacteriological diagnostics, contaminations can lead to false test results, thus, having serious consequences for the patients concerned, their social milieu, and the society. For the laboratory personnel involved, a higher work load and legal consequences can result. There are various types of unintentional contaminations.

A cross contamination is the unintentional carry-over of chemical or microbiological impurities from one substance or product into another substance or product (DIN EN 12469) [12].

Culture contaminations: Contaminations of culture media intended for the cultural detection of mycobacteria can be caused by insufficiently killed contaminating germs from the specimen itself. To a large extent culture contaminations can be prevented by a proper pre-treatment of the specimens. For the measures to be taken to reduce these contaminations to an admissible degree see DIN 58943-3 [13]. They are not dealt with in this supplement.