Blood for mycobacterial culture can be processed using either the Isolator tube system (Wampole Laboratories), BACTEC Myco/F Lytic bottles (Becton Dickinson), or BacT/ALERT MP bottles [16] and [17]. Isolator tubes undergo a lysis centrifugation method to recover intracellular organisms from whole blood specimens followed by inoculation of appropriate media plates. Myco/F Lytic and BacT/ALERT MP bottles are inoculated with whole blood and are optimized to promote the growth of mycobacterial and fungal organisms, which is monitored using automated blood culture instruments.