Kupferberg Trichomonas HiVeg™ Broth Base

Principle And Interpretation

The protozoa that parasitize the intestine and urogenital systems of humans belong to four groups: flagellates, amoeboids, sporozoans and ciliates.Trichomonas belongs to flagellate group of protozoa. Trichomonas hominis is a non-pathogenic protozoan whereas Trichomonas vaginalis is a frequent cause of vaginitis (1). Kupferberg Trichomonas Broth Base, used for the isolation and cultivation of Trichomonas species, was originally formulated by Kupferberg et al (2). Although wet mount examination of infected material are as efficient as cultures in revealing infections, current evidence suggests that cultivation methods are superior (3,4,5). Superiority of the culture method was earlier demonstrated by Williams (6) and Kean and Day (7). The greater accuracy of the culture method was demonstrated by Kupferberg (8) and it was also observed that the efficiency of therapy for these infections could be ascertained by using negative cultures. The culture media can be made selective for the growth of Trichomonas by the external addition of antibiotics. These antibiotics make the media inhibitory to the accompanying bacterial flora (7,8,9,10). Trichomonas HiVeg™ Broth Base, Kupferberg is prepared by using vegetable peptones in place of animal based peptones which make the media free of BSE/TSE risks. The medium contains HiVeg™ hydrolysate, which provides the nitrogenous substances required for growth. Maltose acts as energy source. The selective agents Streptomycin or chloramphenicol and penicillin are inhibitory to accompanying gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria but not to Trichomonas species.