A first morning sputum is received for culture of mycobacter…

A first morning sputum is received for culture of mycobacteria. It is digested and concentrated by the NALC method. Two Lowenstein Jensen slants are incubated in the dark at 35 degrees C with 5-10% CO2. the smears reveal acid fast bacilli and after 7 days, no growth appears on the slants. The best explanation is:

A patient with a nosocomial pneumonia has a sputum gram stai…

A patient with a nosocomial pneumonia has a sputum gram stain that shows many WBCs and numerous small gram negative coccobacilli.  The organism grew in 24 hours as a mucoid hemolytic colony on SBA and a colorless colony on MAC.  The organism has the following characteristics: catalase positive, oxidase negative, arginine negative, lysine negative, nitrate negative, and ONPG negative.  The organism is:

A spiral, flexible organism was demonstrated on a blood smea…

A spiral, flexible organism was demonstrated on a blood smear.  This motile organism was approximately 12μm long, approximately 0.1μm wide, and had semicircular hooked ends.  The description of this organism corresponds most closely to the morphology of: