Rapid species identification and biotyping of respiratory isolates of Haemophilus spp

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Abstract
Three commercially available systems, the 4 h Minitek Enterobacteriaceae III, the Haemophilus Trio-Tube and the Micro-ID, were evaluated for their capacities to identify and biotype 308 human respiratory isolates of Haemophilus spp. When comapred with aminolevulinic acid test results, the definitive identification method used in this study, these systems demonstrated no significant differences in their capacities to differentiate H. influenzae from H. parainfluenzae. They were in agreement with the standard method of species identification .apprx. 50% of the time. When sucrose was added to the Minitek and Trio-Tube configurations, the efficiency rate of species identification increased to > 95%. The Micro-ID could not be modified to incorporate this additional biochemical parameter. The performance of the sucrose-supplemented Minitek and Trio-Tube systems, compared to the combined results of Micro-ID and aminolevulinic acid, produced correlations of 94 and 90%, respectively. Rapid and accurate methodologies are available for combined species identification and biotyping of Haemophilus spp.