title: Quality control in antimicrobial disk susceptibility testing: a Belgian multicenter study.
abstract: A Belgian multicenter trial was conducted to evaluate problems encountered with quality control results of antimicrobial disk susceptibility testing and to compare the performance of BBL disks and Rosco tablets. Over a period of four weeks 18 laboratories daily tested three reference strains against eight antibiotics. A standardised method was used by all participants. For all results together 10.4% and 7.3% of the measurements with BBL disks and Rosco tablets, respectively, were outside the recommended range. Major problems were observed for some specific strain-antibiotic combinations. Standard deviations were similar for both systems; their precision was comparable. The results suggest that cooperation between manufacturers and some reference laboratories could be improved in order to establish optimal quality control limits.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Free University of Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lauwers
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Philippe
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Van Zeebroeck
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pierard
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Derde
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kaufman
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001419:Bacteria / Q000187:drug effects*; D001530:Belgium; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000187:drug effects; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests / Q000592:standards*; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000187:drug effects; D011786:Quality Control; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000187:drug effects
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents