Variable performance of four commercial chromogenic media for detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates harbouring mecC

Abstract In this study, the performances of four methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) chromogenic screening media were compared for detecting mecC -positive MRSA. Using 111 clinical isolates representative of the various mecC -MRSA clones in Europe, chromID ® MRSA (bioMerieux) and Brilliance TM MRSA 2 (Oxoid Ltd.) showed higher sensitivity (99.1% and 97.3%, respectively) than BBL TM CHROMagar ® MRSA II (BD Diagnostics) and MRSA Select TM (Bio-Rad) (79.3% and 63.1%, respectively) ( P  0.0001). These findings have important implications for effective public health diagnostics and epidemiological surveillance of MRSA.