Comparison of the Staph-Ident system with a conventional method for species identification of urine and blood isolates of coagulase-negative staphylococci.

The Staph-Ident system (Analytab Products) for species identification of coagulase-negative staphylococci was compared with the conventional method of Kloos and Schleifer (21). A total of 101 clinical isolates from urine cultures and 95 clinical isolates from blood cultures were studied: overall agreement between the two methods was 86%. We concluded that the Staph-Ident system is a practical test for most clinical microbiology laboratories and that results obtained from this rapid test are comparable to those obtained from the more cumbersome conventional method. Additional investigations are needed to determine the clinical relevance of such species identification.