MRSA Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about MRSA, including details on methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, hospitals, infection, antibiotic resistance, superbugs.

Use of BBL CHROMagar MRSA medium for identification of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus directly from blood cultures.

Pape J, Wadlin J, Nachamkin I

Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine, 4th Floor, Gates Building, 3400 Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA 19104-4283, USA.

We evaluated the ability of BBL CHROMagar MRSA medium (Becton Dickinson, Sparks, MD) to identify methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) directly upon subculture from positive blood culture bottles. There were 124 MRSA isolates recovered from blood cultures in the study. BBL CHROMagar MRSA medium was highly sensitive (97.6% [121/124] at 18 to 24 h of incubation and 100% [124/124] at 48 h) and 99.9% specific for identifying MRSA from positive blood cultures.

Published 7 July 2006 in J Clin Microbiol, 44(7): 2575-6.
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