Possible use of the oxygen uptake rate in the evaluation of BCG vaccines.

Two existing methods suitable for the determination of the oxygen uptake rate (OUR) in BCG suspensions (Warburg and Gilson Oxygraph) are described and compared. With the former method the oxygen uptake rates of the 10 samples of the BCG collaborative assay of the BCG Steering Committee of the International Association of Biological Standardization were determined. When the results are compared with those of colony count and skin reactivity from the collaborative assay, there is a better correlation between OUR and skin reactivity than between OUR and colony count. From the results of our study there is a strong indication that the OUR is a good parameter for quality, and most probably better suited for interlaboratory comparisons than the colony count.