Comparison of paraffin baiting and conventional culture techniques for isolation of Nocardia asteroides from sputum.

Of 1,510 sputum samples examined from 1,016 patients with bronchopulmonary disorders, Nocardia asteroides was isolated from 67 samples by paraffin baiting, as compared with only 30 isolations by the conventional technique of culturing on Sabouraud dextrose agar. This higher efficacy of the paraffin bait technique was found to be statistically significant (P less than 0.001).