Echinocandins are a group of antifungal agents that target 1,3-beta-glucan synthase, causing disruption of mold growth at cells compromising tips and branch points. In part because echinocandins do not induce clear growth inhibition end points using broth dilution techniques, methods to test susceptibility have not yet been standardized. We developed a novel susceptibility assay that measures g...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards agar dilution, tube dilution, and broth microdilution susceptibility tests for the measurement of teicoplanin MICs. The three standardized tests gave equivalent (within a twofold dilution) results with 98.8 to 99.0% of the 508 gram-positive clinical isolates tested, indicating that either method m...

(-)-Untenospongin B isolated from the marine sponge Hippospongia communis has been tested for its antimicrobial activity against bacteria and human pathogenic fungi using agar disk method and was found to possess a broad and strong activity toward the test organisms. Its antifungal activity was further characterized by determination of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) against five fun...

β-Lactam susceptibility of 499 Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC)-producing Enterobacteriaceae, determined by reference broth microdilution, demonstrated that 14.4% of isolates were categorized as cefepime susceptible according to current CLSI breakpoints. Ceftazidime- and meropenem-susceptible isolates were also observed (2.6 and 3.0%, respectively). Cefepime-susceptible KPC-producing i...

The susceptibilities of 142 Acinetobacter baumannii-calcoaceticus complex isolates (95 from wounded U.S. soldiers deployed overseas) to 13 antimicrobial agents were determined by broth microdilution. The most active antimicrobial agents (> or =95% of isolates susceptible) were colistin, polymyxin B, and minocycline.

Antimicrobial susceptibility to sisomicin and netilmicin (Sch 20569) was determined on 164 clinical isolates using a broth microdilution method. Sisomicin was active against 86.1%, and netilmicin against 96.4%, of the isolates. In addition, netilmicin was active against 93.7% of the strains that were resistant to gentamicin, kanamycin, tobramycin, and sisomicin.

Vancomycin and daptomycin MICs from 161 isolates of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) were compared using commercial and in-house broth microdilution, Etest, and common automated methods. Vancomycin Etest MICs were higher than those of other methods, whereas the MICs for daptomycin testing were comparable. Vancomycin MICs vary depending on the testing methodology.

Increasing antibiotic resistance in gram-negative bacteria has recently renewed interest in colistin as a therapeutic option. The increasing use of colistin necessitates the availability of rapid and reliable methods for colistin susceptibility testing. We compared seven methods of colistin susceptibility testing (disk diffusion, agar dilution on Mueller-Hinton [MH] and Isosensitest agar, Etest...