Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate three methods for detection of biofilm formation in staphylococci. Methods: For detection of biofilm formation, 152 clinical isolates of Staphylococcus spp. were screened by tissue culture plate (TCP), Tube method (TM) and Congo red agar (CRA) method. Results: Of the 152 Staphylococcus spp. 88(57.8%) displayed a biofilm-positive phenotype under the optimized conditions in the TCP method and strains were further classified as high 22 (14.47 %) and moderate 60 (39.4 %) while in 70 (46.0 %) isolates weak or no biofilm was detected. Though TM correlated well with the TCP test for 18 (11.8 %) strongly biofilm producing strains, weak producers were difficult to discriminate from biofilm negative isolates. Screening on CRA does not correlate well with either of the two methods for detecting biofilm formation in staphylococci. Conclusion: The TCP method was found to be most sensitive, accurate and reproducible screening method for detection of biofilm formation by staphylococci and has the advantage of being a quantitative model to study the adherence of staphylococci on biomedical devices. Key words: Staphylococci, adherence, biofilm, tissue culture plate, Congo red agarStaphylococci are most often associated with chronic difficult to eradicate and are often resistant to systemic infections of implanted medical devices.1-3 The use of antibiotic therapy and removal of infected device becomes indwelling medical devices is important in the treatment of necessary.9-11 The differentiation of staphylococci with respect critically and chronically ill patients, however bacterial to its biofilm phenotype might help to elucidate the impact colonization of implanted foreign material can cause major of staphylococci in diagnosis of infections related to medical and economic sequel. The increased use of indwelling biomedical devices and these observations may have utility medical devices has had considerable impact on the role of in the prevention of device related infections. 12 staphylococci in clinical medicine. The predominant species isolated in these infections are Staphylococcus epidermidis A number of tests are available to detect slime production and Staphylococcus aureus,their major pathogenic factor being by staphylococci; methods include tissue culture plate (TCP), ability to form biofilm on polymeric surfaces. 4 Biofilm 13 tube method (TM), 14 Congo red agar (CRA), 15,17 consists of multilayered cell clusters embedded in a matrix bioluminescent assay 18 and light or fluorescence microscopic of extracellular polysaccharide (slime), which facilitates the examination. 19,20 These methods are often subject to severe adherence of these microorganisms to biomedical surfaces and analytical limitations and are unable to detect bacterial protect them from host immune system and antimicrobial adherence accurately. In this study, we simultaneously therapy.5 screened 152 clinical isolates of Staphylococcus spp. by TCP (standard and modified), TM and CRA methods for Biofil...

The first outbreak of Candida haemulonii fungemia is described. The seven isolates from the blood of four neonates were identified by DNA sequencing of the ribosomal DNA. They were all resistant to amphotericin B, fluconazole, and itraconazole. This report highlights the emergence of C. haemulonii as an opportunistic pathogen in immunocompromised patients.

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