When Two is Better Than One! - Medical Wire's Convenient Double Swab Packs.

Duo-Transwab® & Duo-Transtube®
Medical Wire's convenient double swab packs.

Medical Wire offers a complete range of double plastic swabs with liquid or gel transport medium

With the ever increasing range of testing procedures available to clinicians (human and veterinary) there can often be a requirement for duplicate specimens. This is particularly the case with swab specimens.

For example in certain clinics or near-patient situations, one swab may be used to do a Gram-film, or for direct plating, while the other is sent to the laboratory which may be at a remote location. Another situation is where the laboratory requires one swab for culture and the other for molecular techniques such as PCR [1].

Some analytes may be present in very low concentrations, or the test being used may have a low sensitivity, and in such circumstances it can be useful to have a double specimen [2,3,4]. For basic research, and for clinical trials duplicate samples may be required for parallel testing to allow methods to be compared [5,6,7,8]. A convenient way of dealing with all these situations is to use Medical Wire's Duo-Transtube® or Duo-Transwab®.

These are based on the familiar M40-compliant Transtube® and Transwab®, but with two swabs mounted in the bell-cap holder. The swabs all feature Medical Wire's open weave rayon bud to allow superior organism release for improved detection of pathogens from specimens [9].

The swabs can be used together, or if required, one swab can be removed from the cap and used separately. The swabs can then be placed in the transport tube together and sent to the laboratory, or one of the swabs can be used for a near -patient procedure and discarded if no longer required.

The system is completely flexible with a choice of gel or liquid Amies transport medium. The double swabs are packed in the same pouches as single swabs, so there is a considerable saving on packaging materials and valuable storage space. Each product is CE-marked [10], and compliant with CLSI M40-A [11].

Full details can be found on Duo-Transwab® & Duo-Transtube®or Duo-Transwab® & Duo-Transtube® in the USA


References:
1. Uhl, J., et al, 2005, Use of the Roche Light Cycler Strep B Assay for Detection of Group B Streptococcus from Vaginal and Rectal Swabs, J. Clin. Microbiol. 43:4046-4051
2. Altaie, S.S., et al, 1996, Preincubation of Cervical Swabs in Lim broth Improves Performance of ICON Rapid Test for Detection of Group B Streptococci, Infect. Dis. Obstet. Gynecol. 4:20-24
3. Di Quinzio, M.K.W. et al, 2007, Proteomic Analysis and Characterisation of Human Cervico-vaginal Fluid Proteins, Aust N Z J Obstet Gynaecol. 47:9-15
4. Harper, D.M., et al, 2003, Factors Affecting the Detection Rate of Human Papillomavirus, Annals of Family Medicine, 1, 4 www.annfammed.org
5. Cassity, T.R., 1982, Comparison of Swabs for the Collection of Clinical Specimens for Anaerobic Cultures, Poster, Scioto Memorial Hospital, Portsmouth, Ohio
6. Patzakis, M.J., et al, 1994, Comparison of the Results of Bacterial Cultures from Multiple Sites in Chronic Osteomyelitis of Long Bones, J. Bone and Joint Surg Am., 76: 664-666
7. Hald, B., et al, 2004, Longitudinal Study of the Excretion Patterns of Thermophilic Campylobacter spp. In Young Pet Dogs in Denmark J. Clin. Microbiol. 42: 2003-2012
8. Chapin K.C., & M.A. Flintoff, 2002, Comparison of Genzyme OSOM Ultra Strep A Test and Thermo Biostar OIA for Detection of Group A Streptococcus. Abstr Intersci conf Antimicrob Agents Chemother Intersci Conf Antimicrob Agents Chemother.2002 Sep 27-30; 42:abstract no. D-122
9. Birrell, K., 2007, Investigation of the Ability of Transport Swabs to Release Collected Microorganisms using the Roll-Plate Method. Poster C-369/076, at 107th General Meeting of American Society of Microbiology, Toronto, Canada
10. European Medical Devices Directive 93/42/EEC
11. CLSI. Quality Control of Microbiological Transport Systems; Approved Standard, CLSI document M40-A [ISBN 1-56238-520-8].