Detection of methicillin resistance in coagulase-negative staphylococci and in staphylococci directly from simulated blood cultures using the EVIGENE MRSA Detection Kit.

The EVIGENE MRSA Detection Kit was evaluated on coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) from agar plates and on staphylococci directly from positive spiked blood cultures. For the CoNS study, a total of 242 isolates were tested, and of these 237 gave valid test results. For the 237 valid tests, all gave correct mecA classification. For the blood culture procedure, a collection of 51 mecA-positive Staphylococcus aureus, 21 mecA-negative S. aureus, 31 mecA-positive CoNS and 28 mecA-negative CoNS were used for the simulated blood cultures. For the S. aureus strains, all gave valid test results and correct mecA classification. One of the MRSA isolates gave a very faint nuc signal, and another four isolates gave results close to the cut-off of the kit; however, these were still clearly positive when read by the naked eye. For the CoNS isolates, 51 of the 59 strains gave valid results. All of these 51 strains gave correct mecA status. Thus the EVIGENE MRSA Detection Kit can provide fast and accurate determination of methicillin resistance in CoNS. This preliminary study of the blood culture procedure indicates that it is possible to achieve determination of methicillin resistance in staphylococci 8 h after positivity of the blood culture, making same-day detection of methicillin resistance possible.