Multicentre interlaboratory analysis of routine susceptibility testing with a challenge panel of resistant strains

• Published in: Journal of global antimicrobial resistance. 2022-03, Vol.28, p.125-129
• Main Authors: Deckers, Corentin, Soleimani, Reza, Denis, Olivier, Bogaerts, Pierre, Berhin, Catherine, Rodríguez-Villalobos, Hector, Descy, Julie, Hallin, Marie, Nonhoff, Claire, Desmet, Stefanie, Magerman, Koen, Van den Abeele, Anne Marie, Lissoir, Bénédicte, Matheeussen, Veerle, Vernelen, Kris, Huang, Te-Din
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anti-Bacterial Agents - pharmacology; Anti-Infective Agents; Automated susceptibility testing; Disk diffusion; Gram-Negative Bacteria; Interlaboratory assay; Microbial Sensitivity Tests; Multidrug-resistant organisms; Quality control; Reproducibility of Results
• ISSN: 2213-7165; 2213-7173
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jgar.2021.12.020

•Quality control should include organisms with relevant and emerging resistances.•A challenge panel of 12 multidrug-resistant organisms was tested by nine laboratories.•Overall categorical agreement was >90% for all but one strain.•Higher discrepancies were observed for fosfomycin, meropenem, aztreonam and tigecycline. In order to elaborate a new national challenge panel of resistant Gram-negative bacilli and Gram-positive cocci strains for the validation of routine antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) methods, an interlaboratory evaluation was organised. The results of 12 well-characterised multidrug-resistant strains tested by nine laboratories using local disk diffusion (DD) and automated AST (AUST) methods were compared with the reference broth microdilution method. Overall categorical agreement ranged from 70% to 100% both for DD and AUST and was >90% for all but one strain for all antibiotics. Our multicentre AST study showed good reproducibility and the panel can be used as national resistant reference strains for routine AST validation.