COMPARISON OF THE SCEPTOR PSEUDOMONAS PLUS MIC PANEL WITH AGAR DILUTION FOR SUSCEPTIBILITY TESTING OF PSEUDOMONAS-AERUGINOSA

The antimicrobial susceptibilities of 100 clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to gentamicin, amikacin, tobramycin, ticarcillin, piperacillin, and ceftazidime were determined by using the Sceptor system (BBL Microbiology Systems, Cockeysville, Md.), and the results were compared with those obtained using the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards reference agar dilution method. Excellent correlation was observed for the aminoglycosides, with >95% agreement within 1 doubling dilution of the reference agar dilution MIC, while ticarcillin and piperacillin showed lower percent agreement values of 91 and 88%, respectively.