Improving the identification of anaerobes in the clinical microbiology laboratory through MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry.

In this study, 1325 anaerobes were analyzed by MALDI-TOF MS. Of these, 92.5% were correctly identified at the species level. One unidentified species and several uncommon and rare species were identified. These results show that this technique has become the new gold standard for the routine identification of clinical anaerobes.