Antimicrobial susceptibility testing of cystic fibrosis and non-cystic fibrosis clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa: a comparison of three methods

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an important pathogen in humans, particularly in the context of nosocomial infection and infections of the cystic fibrosis (CF) lung. In order to provide clinicians with information about the likely effectiveness of specific antimicrobial treatment for P aeruginosa infections, clinical laboratories employ in vitro antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Two commonly employed methods are the CLSI disc-diffusion and Etest methods. The purpose of this study is to compare the accuracy of susceptibility results generated by these two methods against agar dilution as the reference method. Susceptible or non-susceptible (resistant and intermediate) results of the Etest and CLSI disc-diffusion methods are compared with CLSI agar dilution results for a large cohort of clinical cystic fibrosis (n=71) and non-cystic fibrosis (n=83) isolates using CLSI interpretive criteria. An unacceptable number of major and very major errors were observed for various antimicrobials tested against both CF and non-CF isolates when using the Etest and CLSI disc-diffusion methods. The potential for error in standard laboratory antimicrobial susceptibility testing should be considered by clinicians when being guided by the results of such tests in the prescription of antimicrobial agents for R aeruginosa infection.