Antibiotic susceptibility testing of clinical specimen - transferred to test wells in cartridge holding culture medium and antibiotic

摘要

A cartridge contains a number of individual wells linked by passages to a filling port. A clinical specimen is introduced into the filler port and fills the wells which are each provided with an overflow cavity to collect air bubbles during the filling operation. The cartridge is transparent and prior to use a pref. freez-dried culture medium is placed in each well so that microorganism growth within a well can be detected optically. Known quantities of antibiotics are introduced into some of the wells while one well contains no antibiotic. After filling the cartridge with the specimen it is incubated and the wells are examined for growth. The apparatus determines the susceptibility of microorganism to an antibiotic without isolating the microorganism. The culture medium will only support the required microorganism and the effectiveness of the antibiotics is detected by comparing the growths in the antibiotic-free well with the remainder. Determination of the effective antibiotic concentration is faster than previously.