Abstract

The incidence of mycobacterium infection other than tubercle bacilli from tuberculous patients has been reported increasingly in recent years and the significance of unclassified mycobacteria in clinical cases evaluated intensively. In the course of the studies for the distribution of unclassified mycobacteria from tuberclous patients and other sources, authors isolated 29 strains of scotochromogens and tested biochemical characters. 1) Nine strains were isolated from 25 cases of tuberculous patients in mineral industry and 20 strains from various sources of patient from university hospital. 2) All strains isolated were belong to scotochromogens by biochemical characteristics exhibiting following characters; color formation in darkness, strong catalase positive, nitrate reduction negative except one strain and urease positiveness in 24 strains. 3) Growth rate were rather slow grower in Ogawa media forming colonies between 10 and 14 days and sensitivity pattern to antituberculous agents exhibited an usual pattern of unclassified mycobacteria in that test strains were moderately sensitive to streptomycin and isonicotinic acid hydrazide, whereas these were resistant to paraaminosalicylic acid.