Tracheostomy Tube Secretion culture and sensitivity is a technique predominantly used to test the sensitivity of the aerobic bacteria, which can infect the neck and the trachea during and after the tracheostomy.
What is Tracheostomy?
Tracheostomy is a surgical procedure in which an opening is made directly to the airway through an incision in the trachea wind pipe that carries air to the lungs through bronchi. This test is done on both males and females to find out whether the secretions of tracheostomy are infected by a bacteria or not.
What are Tracheostomy secretions, Bacteria, Aerobic Bacteria, and their types?
Tracheostomy secretions are the fluids secreted after making an opening to the airways through an incision to the trachea.
Bacteria are the single-celled micro-organisms that can live within the soil, in the ocean and also inside the human gut. They have a number of shapes such as spirals, rods, and spheres etc. Some bacteria can cause illness to the human body and some other plays a major role in the overall functioning of our ecosystem.
Aerobic bacteria are the bacteria which can survive in the presence of oxygen only. In the absence of oxygen, aerobic bacteria cannot survive and can die. Some of the aerobic bacteria are Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Nocardia, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis etc.
Why this test is performed?
This test is performed to check if an individual throat is infected by an aerobic bacteria or not. This test may be recommended to you by a physician if you experience symptoms such as excessive secretions after tracheostomy, redness, swelling and white pus on the tonsils, red spots in the roof of the mouth, body aches, swollen neck, sore throat, chills, runny nose, scratchy throat, fever, headache, etc.
This test also helps the doctors to plan the treatment according to the type of bacteria, that infects the neck, trachea and excess secretions. The test is also performed to check the effectiveness of the treatment.
Inform your doctor if you are on any medications, have any allergies or underlying medical conditions before your Culture And Sensitivity Aerobic Tracheostomy Tube Secrection. Your doctor will give specific instructions depending on your condition on how to prepare for Culture And Sensitivity Aerobic Tracheostomy Tube Secrection.
No specific preparation is necessary for this test.
The test results may vary depending on age, health history, medical condition, etc.
If your test results are negative, then it may indicate that there are no signs of growth of aerobic bacteria.
If your test results are positive, then it may indicate there is a chance for growth of aerobic bacteria, which means that the trachea and tracheostomy tube secretions have been infected by an aerobic bacteria.
If abnormal test results were seen, consult your doctor immediately with your lab test reports.
Gender | Age groups | Value |
UNISEX | All age groups | The growth depends on the infecting organism. Clearing around the disc indicates organism is sensitive to antibiotic |