Evaluation of a rapid inoculum preparation method for agar disk diffusion susceptibility testing

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A rapid inoculum preparation method for agar disc diffusion susceptibility testing which does not require incubation before inoculation of Mueller-Hinton plates was compared with the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) method. A total of 326 fresh clinical (human) isolates (bacterial) were tested; the NCCLS-recommended quality control organisms were included with each test series. Randomly distributed interpretative changes occurred with 27 (0.8%) of the 3215 test results for the clinical isolates. The quality control organisms were tested on 29 separate days; results were consistently within tolerance limits. The rapid method was equivalent to the standard NCCLS method and required less time and expense.