Simplified and Reliable Scheme for Species-Level Identification of Staphylococcus Clinical Isolates

• Published in: Journal of Clinical Microbiology Vol. 45; no. 8; pp. 2564 - 2569
• Main Authors: Iorio, Natalia Lopes Pontes, Ferreira, Rosana Barreto Rocha, Schuenck, Ricardo Pinto, Malvar, Karoline Lourenço, Brilhante, Anike Pereira, Nunes, Ana Paula Ferreira, Bastos, Carla Callegário Reis, dos Santos, Kátia Regina Netto
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Society for Microbiology 01.08.2007
• Subjects: Bacterial Typing Techniques - methods; Bacteriology; Biological and medical sciences; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Microbiology; Miscellaneous; Sensitivity and Specificity; Staphylococcal Infections - microbiology; Staphylococcus; Staphylococcus - classification; Staphylococcus - isolation & purification; Bacteria; Micrococcales; Micrococcaceae; Identification; Clinical isolate; Staphylococcus
• ISSN: 0095-1137; 1098-660X; 1098-5530
• DOI: 10.1128/JCM.00679-07

Reliable and rapid identification of staphylococcal strains continues to be a problem faced by many microbiology laboratories. This study evaluates a simplified method that uses a flowchart to assist in the identification of 12 clinical species of Staphylococcus, including eight subspecies. A total of 198 isolates and 11 control strains were identified by the reference method, which employed 22 tests. The results were compared with those obtained by two other methods: an automated system (MicroScan WalkAway) and a simplified method composed of nine tests. The simplified scheme showed an accuracy of 98.5%, while the automated method showed an accuracy of 79.3% (P < 0.001), in identifying staphylococcal species. Atypical phenotypic profiles were detected by both the reference (55.6%) and the simplified (19.7%) methods. The simplified method proposed here was shown to be reliable, with the advantage of being more practical and economic than the reference method.