Impact of a short period of pre-enrichment on detection and bacterial loads of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus from screening specimens.
We compared the impacts of direct plating on a chromogenic medium and of plating after enrichment (4 h and overnight) on the detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from 52 patient screening samples. MRSA colony counts for approximately 70% of samples after overnight pre-enrichment were >20-fold higher than the counts after the other two treatments. The qualitative differences (sample was MRSA positive/negative) between the results of the direct plating and 4-h pre-enrichment treatments were not significant, indicating no advantage of the latter; however, the number of samples positive for MRSA increased significantly after an overnight sample pre-enrichment (P < 0.005).
Van Heirstraeten
L
L
University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
Cortiñas Abrahantes
J
J
Lammens
C
C
Lee
A
A
Harbarth
S
S
Molenberghs
G
G
Aerts
M
M
Goossens
H
H
Malhotra-Kumar
S
S
D001431:Bacteriological Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D055624:Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013203:Staphylococcal Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*
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