Comparative Evaluation of Two PCR-Based Methods for Detection of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA): Xpert MRSA Gen 3 and BD-Max MRSA XT

We compared two walk-away molecular diagnostic assays, the GeneXpert MRSA Gen 3 assay and the BD-Max MRSA XT assay. A total of 119 prospective swabs and 36 culture-positive samples were tested. Xpert MRSA Gen 3 had sensitivity of 95.7% and specificity of 100% versus 87.5% and 97.1% for BD-Max. The difference in agreement with the enriched culture results was significantly in favor of the Xpert assay (P < 0.02, McNemar nonparametric text).