Abstract: | 2545 strains of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from 24 Polish laboratories in the years 1994-95 were investigated. Phage typing was performed according to the method of Blair and Williams using the present basic set of typing phages and additional phages 88, 89 and 187. The phages were employed in concentrations of RTD and 100 x RTD. The predominance of phage group II, reported elsewhere since 1980-ties, was found in the present study (23.6%). Strains of group III were second in frequency (16.6%), whereas strains of groups I and V, as well as type 95 occurred in small percentage (7.6%, 4% and 3.4% respectively). Strains of groups II and V have been rarely lysed by phages belonging to other groups. The use of additional phages resulted in typability of strains by 7.9%. Percentage of non-typable strains was high and amounted to 22.0%. |