A new chromogenic agar medium, chromID VRE, to screen for vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus faecalis.

We compared the performance of a chromogenic agar medium chromID VRE (bioMérieux, Marcy-l'Etoile, France) designed to recover and identify vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) from clinical specimens with bile esculin azide vancomycin (BEAV) agar. For this study, 120 stool specimens were plated on chromID VRE and BEAV and examined after 24 and 48 h. At 24 h, the sensitivity and specificity were as follows: BEAV, 90.2% and 73%, respectively; chromID VRE, 86.3% and 100.0%, respectively. Furthermore, we determined that the sensitivity and specificity of chromID VRE for Enterococcus faecium were 85.4% and 100%, respectively, and for Enterococcus faecalis, 90% and 100%, respectively. We conclude that chromID VRE provides an equivalent sensitivity for the recovery of VRE from stool specimens, with improved specificity, and the added advantage of providing differentiation between vancomycin-resistant E. faecium and E. faecalis.