Pioculture

PIOCULTURE (from Greek pyon—pus and cultura—cultivation), a method aimed at revealing the organism's reaction to infection, predicting its outcome, and, depending on this, establishing indications for surgical intervention. Pioculture was proposed by P. Delbet in July 1915 in connection with the extremely large number of infected wounds observed during the imperialist war and severe forms of infection. The method consists of the following. Pus from a wound is aspirated into a Pasteur pipette, which is sealed at both ends over a burner and placed in an incubator for 24 hours. Simultaneously, a control smear of the pus is made on a microscope slide using a platinum loop, and a culture is made in broth from the same purulent focus. After 24 hours, smears are made on slides from the contents of the pipette and the broth culture. The smears are stained (e.g., with a 1% aqueous solution of methylene blue) and compared with the control smear regarding the quantity and quality of bacteria. If the number of bacteria in the latter smears is greater than in the control, then the pioculture is called "positive." This means that the infection is overcoming the organism and the prognosis is poor. If, conversely, there are fewer bacteria in these smears than in the control, then the pioculture is "negative," i.e., the bacteria are declining and dying. If there is no noticeable difference between the smears, then the pioculture is considered "indefinite." If the number of bacteria of one species has increased and another has decreased, then the pioculture is called "selective." Delbet attaches great importance to pioculture and considers it such an accurate method that in case of a discrepancy between the results of the pioculture and the clinical findings, he gives preference to the former. Later authors who tested the reaction also consider pioculture a very valuable diagnostic tool that provides a clear idea of the organism's reaction, but they do not attribute great prognostic significance to it. The disadvantages of the method also include the difficulty of obtaining smears of uniform density and determining the number of bacteria simply by eye in the microscope's field of view. The latter disadvantage can be partially eliminated if one uses the same method that is applied for counting bacteria during the preparation of vaccines. According to this method, the counting of bacteria is performed in relation to red blood cells in a counting chamber for blood corpuscles. Milostanov, Borisova, and Levshakova applied pioculture as a control method during treatment with autovaccine and concluded that pioculture is a highly sensitive reagent for the introduction of autovaccine into the organism, making it possible to monitor its therapeutic effect. At the present time, pioculture is little used, but due to its simplicity and accessibility, it can sometimes serve as an auxiliary diagnostic tool among other research methods.