title: Evaluation of a rapid screening method for detection of antimicrobial resistance in the commensal microbiota of the gut.
abstract: The assessment of antimicrobial resistance among commensal bacteria is an indicator of the spread of antimicrobial resistance. Rapid screening methods for detection of antimicrobial-resistant faecal Escherichia coli directly on MacConkey plates have been successfully adopted but suffer from lack of standardisation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a direct plating method (DPM) for detection of antimicrobial-resistant faecal E. coli and to compare it with a conventional method. Faecal samples were collected from 71 healthy children from Peru and Bolivia. In the DPM, a faecal swab was directly plated onto a MacConkey agar plate and antimicrobial disks were applied onto the seeded plate. Raw data were obtained by direct reading of the plate and were subjected to confirmatory analysis. Good concordance between the DPM and a conventional method was observed in detecting carriage of resistant E. coli, with a higher sensitivity for the DPM. Analysis of the results allowed interpretive criteria to be defined for DPM raw data. The DPM showed good sensitivity and specificity at very low cost (ten times cheaper than the conventional method) to investigate the faecal carriage of drug-resistant E. coli. It may represent a useful tool to conduct large-scale resistance surveillance studies and to monitor resistance control programmes cost effectively, particularly in low-resource countries.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento Area Critica Medico Chirurgica, Clinica Malattie Infettive, Università di Firenze, Firenze, Italy. bartoloni@unifiti.it
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bartoloni
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Benedetti
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pallecchi
authors.forename: Mattias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Larsson
authors.forename: Antonia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mantella
authors.forename: Marianne
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Strohmeyer
authors.forename: Filippo
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bartalesi
authors.forename: Connie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fernandez
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Guzman
authors.forename: Yolanda
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Vallejos
authors.forename: Ana Liz
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Villagran
authors.forename: Humberto
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Guerra
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gotuzzo
authors.forename: Franco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Paradisi
authors.forename: Torkel
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Falkenberg
authors.forename: Gian Maria
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Rossolini
authors.forename: Göran
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kronvall
mesh_terms: D001431:Bacteriological Techniques / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D001838:Bolivia; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000187:drug effects / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D010568:Peru; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity