Culture Harder: Use more specimen to increase MRSA culture yield relative to PCR

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) causes considerable morbidity and mortality in both community acquired and healthcare associated infections, but detecting colonization with MRSA has been shown to improve patient outcomes in certain clinical settings. MRSA colonization detection has been carried out in a variety of ways with molecular assays having superior sensitivity in most studies relative to culture, but culture is disadvantaged in some comparisons by utilization of low specimen volumes. We compared a commercial molecular assay to both low volume (10 µL) and high volume (650 µL) culture and found that increasing the volume utilized for culture led to detection of 25% more cases than low volume culture.