Role of Viral Cultures in Diagnosis of Adenovirus Infection Viral culture is not employed in clinical practice by several commercial laboratories and hospitals. Those which do employ viral culture test prefer a specimen collected in the initial phase of clinical course. The specimen includes throat swabs, tracheal aspirates, sputum, conjunctival swabs, bronchoalveolar lavage, stool, blood, urine, CSF and tissue samples. The specimens are shipped frozen.