Vitek 2 ms

Ingolstadt Hospital is a secondary 1155-bed hospital in the center of Bavaria (southeastern Germany), providing health care for about 500,000 inhabitants in the planning region 10. The hospital boasts three intensive care units and intermediate care as well as a stroke unit. The hospital has four internal and various surgical facilities. At the microbiological laboratory of Ingolstadt Hospital, SDSE isolates were cultured in thioglycolate broth, on sheep blood agar (bioMérieux, Nürtingen, Germany), Schaedler agar containing 5% sheep blood (bioMérieux), and/or chocolate agar (bioMérieux). Urine samples were cultured on sheep blood agar covered with a 50 µg pipemidic acid disk (BioRad, Marnes-la-Coquette, France) to inhibit the growth of Gram-negative bacteria. Blood cultures were grown in aerobe and anaerobe blood culture bottles using the BactAlert blood culture system (bioMérieux). After bacterial growth was detected by the BactAlert system, blood samples from aerobe bottles were given on blood and chocolate agar and additionally on Schaedler agar in the case of bacterial growth in anaerobe blood culture bottles. Species identification was either determined using Vitek 2 MS (bioMérieux) or the Vitek 2 compact (bioMérieux) with appropriate Vitek 2 identification (ID) cards.

Baseline strain characterization was routinely performed at time of diagnosis and retrieved from patients' medical records, including (i) species identification using VITEK®2 MS (bioMérieux, version 2.8.4.20081127, Shimadzu Biotech) (39 (link)); and (ii) antimicrobial susceptibility profile using the disk diffusion method on Mueller-Hinton agar supplemented with 5% sheep blood, as recommended by the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing. Most clinical isolates responsible for a BJI diagnosed at our institution had been stored in cryotubes at −80°C since 2007. Available Corynebacterium spp. strains isolated from the included patients were subcultivated on Colombia agar supplemented with 5% sheep blood (COS, bioMérieux, Marcy l'Etoile, France) at 37°C for 48 h for further bacteriological assessments.