Evaluation of the Vitek 2 system for identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing of Staphylococcus spp.

The Vitek 2 system was assessed against reference methods with 197 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus from Belgian hospitals and 121 clinically significant blood culture isolates of Staphylococcus spp. Vitek 2 identified 95% of staphylococcal isolates correctly, detected oxacillin resistance with a sensitivity/specificity of 99/96%, and showed acceptable accuracy for susceptibility testing of five of eight other evaluable antibiotics. The median time for reporting results was 2 h 45 min for identification and 7 h for susceptibility tests.