NEW LATEX REAGENT USING MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODIES TO CAPSULAR POLYSACCHARIDE FOR RELIABLE IDENTIFICATION OF BOTH OXACILLIN-SUSCEPTIBLE AND OXACILLIN-RESISTANT STAPHYLOCOCCUS-AUREUS

A new latex agglutination test (Pastorex Staph-Plus, Sanofi Diagnostic s Pasteur), consisting of a mixture of latex particles coated with fib rinogen and immunoglobulin G for the detection of clumping factor and protein A and latex particles sensitized with monoclonal antibodies di rected to Staphylococcus aureus serotype 5 and 8 capsular polysacchari des, was compared with three commercially available rapid agglutinatio n methods for the identification of 220 isolates of S. aureus (61 oxac illin resistant) and 128 isolates of coagulase-negative staphylococci. The sensitivity for identification of S. aureus was high with the Pas torex Staph-Plus test (98.6%) compared with those of the other tests, which ranged from 91.8 to 84.5%. Test sensitivities for the identifica tion of oxacillin-resistant S. aureus were as follows: Pastorex Staph- Plus, 95.1%; Pastorex Staph, 73.8%; Staphyslide, 72.1%; and StaphAurex , 49.2%.