Evaluation of the MS-2 system for rapid identification of Enterobacteriaceae

Abstract

The precision, accuracy and other performance characteristics of the MS-2 system for the identification of Enterobacteriaceae were evaluated in a collaborative study involving 3 clinical laboratories. When identifying 150 unknown, coded organisms, the MS-2 system was 97, 98 and 93% accurate, respectively, in 3 laboratories. The system showed an overall accuracy of 94% when compared with conventional manual tube methods in identifying 1154 clinical isolates of 26 spp. of Enterobacteriaceae. Discrepancies between automated and conventional methods were chiefly caused by biochemical variants, especially among Enterobacter spp. The MS-2 system was rapid and simple to operate and produced printed results of bacterial identification in 5 h. The cost of disposable components compared favorably with commercial, visually read systems for identifying Enterobacteriaceae.