[Evaluation of susceptibility of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains to vancomycin]

Susceptibility to vancomycin and teicoplanin was studied in the most frequently isolated Staphylococcus species isolated in the State Hospital Clinic Nr 1 in Warsaw in 1994. No strains resistant to vancomycin were found in two Staphylococci most frequently isolated from clinical material: S. aureus and S. epidermidis. Occurrence of this resistance is very rare and is restricted only to coagulase-negative Staphylococci such as S. xylosus, S. capitis, S. lentus and S. cohni. Resistance to teicoplanin was observed more often (1.4% in S. aureus and from 11.8% to 39.3% in 9 species of coagulase-negative Staphylococci). For the majority of methicillin-susceptible clinical strains (80%), the MBC value did not exceed 4.0 mcg/ml of vancomycin while for almost half of the strains in the population of methicillin-resistant strains MBC values ranged from 32.0 to 128 mcg/ml of vancomycin. Moreover, vancomycin-tolerant strains were found eight times more often in the studied MRSA (26.7%) population than in MSSA strains (3.3%).