Study to determine the ability of clinical laboratories to detect antimicrobial-resistant Enterococcus spp. in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Few reports of vancomycin-resistant enterococci have appeared outside the USA. Therefore, we evaluated the ability of five laboratories in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to perform susceptibility testing using the disk diffusion method. Laboratories had difficulty identifying the low- and intermediate-level vancomycin-resistant phenotypes. This suggests that the disk diffusion method used by laboratories abroad may fail to detect some vancomycin-resistant enterococci. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.