Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical - SBMT, Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical, 5(44), p. 631-632, 2011
DOI: 10.1590/s0037-86822011000500021
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INTRODUCTION: Laboratory-based surveillance is an important component in the control of vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE). METHODS: The study aimed to evaluate real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) (genes vanA-vanB) for VRE detection on 115 swabs from patients included in a surveillance program. RESULTS: Sensitivity of RT-PCR was similar to primary culture (75% and 79.5%, respectively) when compared to broth enriched culture, whereas specificity was 83.1%. CONCLUSIONS: RT-PCR provides same day results, however it showed low sensitivity for VRE detection.