Comparison of cefoxitin disc diffusion test, HiCrome rapid MRSA agar and PCR for mec A, PVL and fem B genes for detection of methicillinresistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

Abstract

This study evaluates the effectiveness of cefoxitin disk diffusion as a method to detect methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), comparing with HiCrome MRSA screening agar and PCR-based mecA gene detection. Both PCR and the cefoxitin disk diffusion test exhibited 100% sensitivity and specificity, while HiCrome agar showed slightly lower sensitivity (90%) and specificity (95.24%) out of 72 Staphylococcus aureus isolates. The MRSA detection rate was found to be 41.66%, with femB and PVL genes present in 86.6% and 13.3% of MRSA isolates, respectively. Cefoxitin could serve as a reliable substitute marker for MRSA detection, particularly in settings with limited resources.