Evaluation of the Enteric-Tek system for identifying Enterobacteriaceae.

The Enteric-Tek wheel (Flow Laboratories), consisting of 14 different biochemical parameters for rapidly identifying Enterobacteriaceae, was evaluated and compared with the conventional method for completely identifying 301 enteric cultures, representing 36 species. The Enteric-Tek system correctly identified 264 (97.8%) of the 270 common or typical strains and 26 (83.9%) of the 31 unusual or atypical strains tested, demonstrating an overall identification accuracy rate of 96.3%. There were 80 (26.6%) correctly identified strains requiring additional tests. Of the 11 (3.6%) misidentifications, 5 (3 Klebsiella and 2 Salmonella strains) were correctly identified at the genus level. When 4,228 individual tests in the Enteric-Tek wheel were compared with the conventional tubed media, 96.4% of the tests agreed; urease, citrate, adonitol, and lactose agreed less than 97%. The Enteric-Tek system was found to be reliable and accurate in producing identifications at the genus and species level within 18 to 24 h.