Evaluation of five commercial systems for identification of coagulase-negative staphylococci to species level

Abstract
Five commercially available systems for identification of coagulase-negative staphylococci to the species level were evaluated using 163 clinical staphylococcal isolates. The conventional method of Kloos and Schleifer served as reference method. The API 20GP system showed the highest rate of agreement with the reference method, correctly identifying 98.8% of the isolates. The Microscan system had an overall rate of agreement of 96.3 %, and Staph-Trac, Sceptor and Staph-Ident rates of 88.8 %, 87.6 % and 84. % respectively.