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Susceptibility tests determine a microbe's vulnerability to antimicrobial drugs by exposing a standardized concentration of organism to specific concentrations of antimicrobial drugs. Susceptibility testing can be done for bacteria, fungi, and viruses. For some organisms, results obtained with one drug predict results with similar drugs. Thus, not all potentially useful drugs are tested.
Susceptibility testing occurs in vitro and may not account for many in vivo factors (eg, pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics, site-specific drug concentrations, host immune status, site-specific host defenses) that influence treatment success. Thus, susceptibility test results do not always predict treatment outcome.
Susceptibility testing can be done qualitatively, semiquantitatively, or using nucleic acid–based methods. Testing can also determine the effect of combining different antimicrobials (synergy testing).
Qualitative methods:
Qualitative methods are less precise than semiquantitative. Results are usually reported as susceptible (S), intermediate (I), or resistant (R). Some strains that do not have established criteria for resistance may be reported only as susceptible or nonsusceptible. Establishment of which specific drug concentrations represent S, I, and R is based on multiple factors, particularly pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, clinical, and microbiologic data.
The commonly used disk diffusion method (also known as the Kirby-Bauer test) is appropriate for rapidly growing organisms. It places antibiotic-impregnated disks on agar plates inoculated with the test organism. After incubation (typically 16 to 18 h), the diameter of the zone of inhibition around each disk is measured. Each organism-antibiotic combination has different diameters signifying S, I, or R.
Other methods that require less rigid adherence to test parameters can be used to rapidly screen for resistance of a single organism to a single drug or drug class or to specific antimicrobial combinations (eg, oxacillin resistance of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, β-lactamase production).
Semiquantitative methods:
Semiquantitative methods determine the minimal concentration of a drug that inhibits growth of a particular organism in vitro. This minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) is reported as a numerical value that may then be translated to 1 of 4 groupings: S (sensitive), I (intermediate), R (resistant), or sometimes nonsusceptible. MIC determination is used primarily for bacteria, including mycobacteria and anaerobes, and is sometimes used for fungi, especially Candida sp, obtained from sterile sites. Minimal killing (bactericidal) concentration (MBC) can also be determined but is technically difficult, and standards for interpretation have not been agreed on. The value of MBC testing is that it indicates whether a drug may be bacteriostatic or bactericidal.
The antibiotic can be diluted in agar or broth, which is then inoculated with the organism. Broth dilution is the gold standard but is labor intensive because only one drug concentration can be tested per tube. A more efficient method uses a strip of polyester film impregnated with antibiotic in a concentration gradient along its length. The strip is laid on an agar plate containing the inoculum, and the MIC is determined by the location on the strip where inhibition begins; multiple antibiotics can be tested on one plate.
The MIC allows correlation between drug susceptibility of the organism and the achievable tissue concentration of drug not bound to protein (free drug). If the tissue concentration of free drug is higher than the MIC, successful treatment is likely. Similarly, reports of S, I, and R are correlated with MIC but generally are not tissue concentration–specific. That is, they are usually based on achievable serum or plasma concentration of free drug.
Nucleic acid–based methods:
These tests incorporate nucleic acid techniques similar to those used for organism identification (see Laboratory Diagnosis of Infectious Disease: Nucleic Acid–Based Identification Methods for Infectious Disease) but modified to detect known resistance genes or mutations. An example is mecA, a gene for oxacillin resistance in S. aureus; if this gene is present, the organism is considered resistant to all β-lactam drugs regardless of apparent susceptibility results. However, although a number of such genes are known, their presence does not uniformly confer in vivo resistance. Also, because new mutations or other resistance genes may be present, their absence does not guarantee drug susceptibility. For these reasons and because the tests are limited in number, expensive, and not widely available, nucleic acid methods have not replaced standard culture and routine susceptibility testing.
Last full review/revision February 2013 by Kevin C. Hazen, PhD
Content last modified March 2013
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