E. Bingen et al., RANDOMLY AMPLIFIED POLYMORPHIC DNA ANALYSIS PROVIDES RAPID DIFFERENTIATION OF METHICILLIN-RESISTANT COAGULASE-NEGATIVE STAPHYLOCOCCUS BACTEREMIA ISOLATES IN PEDIATRIC HOSPITAL, Journal of clinical microbiology, 33(6), 1995, pp. 1657-1659
Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) are now recognized as the most
common cause of nosocomial bacteremia in pediatric patients. Randomly
amplified polymorphic DNA analysis was used to study the relationship
s among 12 isolates of CoNS obtained from eight patients with catheter
-related bacteremia in two distinct wards of our hospital and 6 epidem
iologically unrelated strains. With this method, we were able to discr
iminate isolates that otherwise mere indistinguishable by conventional
criteria such as biochemical typing and antibiotic susceptibility pat
terns. Our results indicated that there were episodes of cross-infecti
ons among four patients in one ward but independent infectious episode
s among four patients in the other ward. Randomly amplified polymorphi
c DNA analysis is a rapid method which seems particularly well suited
to the epidemiological study of CoNS isolates.