Evolving Rapid Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus Detection: Cover All the Bases

The dissemination of methicillin-resistant (MR) Staphylococcus aureus (SA) in community and health-care settings is of great concern and associated with high mortality and morbidity. Rapid detection of MRSA with short turnaround time can minimize the time to initiate appropriate therapy and further promote infection control. Early detection of MRSA directly from clinical samples is complicated by the frequent association of MRSA with methicillin-susceptible SA (MSSA) and coagulase-negative Staphylococcus (CoNS) species. Infection associated with true MRSA or MSSA is differentiated from CoNS, requires target specific primers for the presence of SA and mec A or nuc or fem A gene for confirmation of MR. Recently, livestock-associated MRSA carrying mec C variant complicates the epidemiology of MRSA further. Several commercial rapid molecular kits are available with a different combination of these targets for the detection of MRSA or MSSA. The claimed sensitivity and specificity of the currently available commercial kits is varying, because of the different target combination used for detection of SA and MR.