Thermo Fisher Scientific has launched Oxoid Brilliance CRE agar, a medium designed to make it quicker and easier to screen for and detect carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE).
The spread of infections by resistant bacteria such as CRE can only be stopped by rapidly identifying and isolating hospital patients who are infected with the resistant strain.
The Brilliance CRE agar can be used by laboratories to screen patient samples for CRE.
It provides clinicians with results in around 18 to 24 hours, enabling them to start infection control measures sooner.
The Oxoid Brilliance CRE agar is claimed to be easier to use and read than the Hodge test that is traditionally used to detect resistance to carbapenems.
Brilliance CRE agar contains a modified carbapenem, at levels recommended by both the CLSI and Eucast, ensuring reliable detection of numerous CRE strains, including those with the NDM-1 mechanism of resistance.
Chromogenic compounds in the medium differentiate between resistant E.
coli (pink colonies) and Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Serratia or Citrobacter (KESC) organisms (blue colonies).
The colonies of other resistant organisms appear white and are easy to spot against the novel pigmented agar.
