OBJECTIVE To determine the pattern of antibiotic resistance in the clinical isolates of Staphylococcus (S.) aureus, Methicillin Resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and define the possible emergence of Vancomycin resistant S. aureus (VRSA) in Karachi. STUDY DESIGN An observational study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY Essa Laboratories and Department of Molecular Genetics, Ziauddin Hospital, from Januar...

Objective: This study was carried out to find out the extent of MRSA in hospitalized patients in Military Hospital Rawalpindi. Methodology: It is a prospective cross sectional descriptive study based on the records of admitted patients in Military Hospital Rawalpindi during June 2005 to September 2005. Non-consecutive non-duplicate clinical isolates of MRSA, isolated from different clinical sam...

The activity of cefamandole and cefuroxime against oxacillin-resistant staphylococcus epidermidis was studied in vitro to determine whether there was any relationship between oxacillin resistance phenotypes and cephalosporin activity. Oxacillin resistance phenotypes were determined by efficiency-of-plating studies on Mueller-Hinton agar containing oxacillin, with and without NaCl, and incubated...

A total of 138 isolates, 118 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates (staphylococcal cassette chromosome type II, 20 isolates, type III, 39 isolates and type IV, 59 isolates) and 20 methicillin-sensitive S. aureus isolates were evaluated by phenotypic methods: cefoxitin and oxacillin disk diffusion (DD), agar dilution (AD), latex agglutination (LA), oxacillin agar screening ...

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are now a worldwide problem. Cystic fibrosis (CF) patients are commonly colonized and infected by MRSA. Accurate oxacillin susceptibility testing is mandatory for the adequate management of these patients. We performed a comparison of the accuracy of different tests in CF isolates, including methicillin-susceptible S. aureus and MRSA with diffe...

The National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards has recently changed the oxacillin breakpoint from >/=4 mg/liter to >/=0. 5 mg/liter to detect methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) because the previous breakpoint lacked sensitivity. To determine the correlation between the new oxacillin breakpoint and the presence of the mecA gene, 493 CoNS of 11 species were te...

The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of staphylococci in raw poultry products intended for human consumption and to determine antimicrobial susceptibility, particularly of oxacillin-resistant isolates. Poultry (chicken) liver as representative samples were randomly selected in different retail markets. Isolation of staphylococci was performed using general and selective nutri...

The rapid detection of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia and a swift determination of methicillin susceptibility has serious clinical implications affecting patient mortality. This study evaluated the StaphSR assay (BD GeneOhm, San Diego, CA), a real-time PCR assay, for the identification and differentiation of methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) f...