Evaluation of the Culturette Brand Ten-Minute Group A Strep ID Technique

A direct extraction of the antigens of group A beta-hemolytic streptococci from 557 throat swabs was performed by a new microtechnique of the nitrous acid extraction method with the Culturette Brand Ten-Minute Strep ID technique from Marion Scientific, Division of Marion Laboratories, Inc., Kansas City, Mo. This group A latex reagent kit contains the reagents for the micronitrous acid extraction of throat swabs and does not require a centrifugation step in its protocol. There was a 99.3% (553 of 557) total agreement between the direct nitrous acid extraction-latex agglutination method and the standard culture method. The direct extraction method yielded an identification of 95.1% (78 of 82) of the group A streptococci identified by the standard method. Throat swabs used for standard culture may also be extracted with nitrous acid for the detection of group A antigen. A 5-min nitrous acid extraction destroys the viability of bacteria associated with normal throat flora as well as group A streptococci and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This highly rapid method is simple to perform and requires no costly instrumentation. Accordingly, it would be most applicable in a hospital laboratory as well as in a physician's office.