Sixty-eight Staphylococcus aureus strains, isolated from mouth and nose in clinically healthy individuals were submitted to phagetyping. Although the three niches, togne, saliva and nose, showed equivalent percentual of isolation, the nose and the mouth harbour different phage patterns from the International Phagetyping Set. The strains isolated from the nose were more sensitive to the phages from group I, whereas the strains isolated from the tongue were more sensitive to the phages from group III. Based on these observations, research on nose and mouth (tongue and saliva) simultaneously is recommended, where S. aureus carriers are detected.
Staphylococcus aureus; Carrier state