Identification testing should only be performed on isolated colonies or pure cultures. Isolated or pure cultures are cultures that contain only one type of bacteria and arise from single cells. Aseptic technique must be used in inoculating and maintaining pure cultures of bacteria.

Non-culture techniques do not require bacterial multiplication before detection. Some techniques, such as microscopy and detection of bacterial antigens in specimens, can provide results as quickly as 2 hours. Please follow the article Non-culture techniques for laboratory diagnosis of infections - Part 1

Non-culture techniques do not require bacterial multiplication before detection. Because in medical bacteriology, culturing bacteria from patient specimens has become synonymous.