Comparison of a yellow latex reagent with other agglutination methods for the identification of Staphylococcus aureus.

A new commercial yellow latex agglutination reagent (Bacto-Staph) was compared with the slide and tube coagulase tests and three other commercial reagents for the identification of 283 Staphylococcus aureus and 54 non-S. aureus staphylococcal strains. Test sensitivities for the identification of S. aureus were as follows: tube coagulase, 99.6%; slide coagulase, 98.6%; Bacto-Staph, 99.6%; Staphylatex, 98.6%; Sero STAT Staph, 98.2%; and Staphyloslide, 97.5%. No false-positive reactions were observed with any of the commercial reagents.