title: Problems arising in antimicrobial therapy due to false susceptibility testing.
abstract: In vitro antibiotic susceptibility testing provides clinicians with guidelines to assess microbial sensitivities to various antibiotics. However, susceptibility testing is a laboratory procedure which does not always reflect the in vivo situation. False susceptibility testing is often due to methodological/disk concentration problems. In vitro versus in vivo discrepancies may also occur because of problems with varying pH/antibiotic concentration at the infection site. Clinicians should use susceptibility testing as a guide, but must rely upon the patient's clinical response as the ultimate in vivo susceptibility test.
authors.affiliation: Infectious Disease Division, Winthrop-University Hospital, Mineola, New York 11501, USA.
authors.forename: B A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Cunha
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results