[Quality control for antimicrobial susceptibility test using correlation between MIC results].
The method of National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) is widely used for the daily quality control of the antimicrobial susceptibility test. This method, however, cannot detect the accidental error, although it is useful to detect the systematic error in the examination. We developed a computer program using the correlation between the various antimicrobial susceptibility test results to detect an accidental error. The combinations of the MIC results determined for two antimicrobial agents which showed a high correlation coefficient (> or = 0.7), were selected from 98 bacterial species (2122 strains) isolated from January 2000 to December 2000 at Oita Medical University Hospital. Subsequently, a total of 127 combinations of antimicrobial agents for 13 species were selected on the basis of acceptable correlation ranges. Then, the method were verified with 666 strains (5753 combinations) isolated during the period of January to June, 2001. Twenty-six strains (47 combinations) were identified as an unexpected result, and the occurrence of error were confirmed in 3 strains (12 combinations). These results suggest that this method which evaluated the correlation between MICs against different antimicrobial agents is applicable for the quality control of antimicrobial susceptibility testings.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Oita Medical University Hospital, Hasama, Oita, 879-5593.
Tamio
T
Ueno
Kazufumi
K
Hiramatsu
Tadao
T
Nakano
Shinji
S
Koga
Yasuhiro
Y
Magari
Tetsunori
T
Saikawa
Masaru
M
Nasu
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques / Q000592:standards*; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D011786:Quality Control
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents