OBJECTIVES To investigate the reliability of cefoxitin and oxacillin for the detection of mecC-positive Staphylococcus aureus. METHODS The susceptibility to cefoxitin and oxacillin of 62 mecC-positive S. aureus isolates was investigated using broth microdilution, agar dilution, Etest and disc diffusion on different types of media. The data were interpreted for the utility of cefoxitin and oxa...

Background Aerococcus urinae and Aerococcus sanguinicola are relatively newcomers and emerging organisms in clinical and microbiological practice. Both species have worldwide been associated with urinary tract infections. More rarely cases of bacteremia/septicemia and infective endocarditis have been reported. Treatment options are therefore important. Just recently, European recommendations on...

OBJECTIVES The emergence of decreased susceptibility to third-generation, extended-spectrum cephalosporins in Neisseria gonorrhoeae and associated treatment failures highlights the need to consider alternatives for future therapeutic use, such as gentamicin. METHODS The three laboratories surveying gonococcal antimicrobial susceptibility as part of the European Network for Sexually Transmitte...

The objective of this study was to investigate an apparent increase in linezolid-nonsusceptible staphylococci and enterococci following a laboratory change in antimicrobial susceptibility testing from disk diffusion to an automated susceptibility testing system. Isolates with nonsusceptible results (n = 27) from Vitek2 were subjected to a battery of confirmatory testing which included disk diff...

OBJECTIVES To model the standard broth microdilution method, based on a modified Gompertz function, to obtain accurate vancomycin MIC values for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The effect of these MIC values on the vancomycin therapeutic target of AUC(0-24)/MIC ≥ 400 was evaluated. METHODS Three clinical isolates of MRSA with different vancomycin MIC values were used in th...

BACKGROUND Ertapenem is a once-a-day carbapenem and has excellent activity against many gram-positive and gram-negative aerobic, facultative, and anaerobic bacteria. The susceptibility of isolates of community-acquired bacteremia to ertapenem has not been reported yet. The present study assesses the in vitro activity of ertapenem against aerobic and facultative bacterial pathogens isolated from...

We appreciate the interest of Nastro et al. in our recent article (1); their comments (2) offer an opportunity to discuss the work further. Our study was undertaken with a collection of Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella pneumoniae clinical isolates for which colistin (Cst) MICs were elevated. It was observed that among the commercial methods for Cst susceptibility testing (ST), gradient di...