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Assessment of the oxacillin disk screening test for determining Penicillin resistance inStreptococcus pneumoniae

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Abstract

The 1 μg oxacillin disk diffusion screening test was performed on 1516 recent clinical isolates ofStreptococcus pneumoniae obtained in a 1994–1995 U.S. surveillance study and the results compared to penicillin MICs determined using a standardized broth microdilution method. The oxacillin disk screening method failed to distinguish penicillin-resistant strains from those that were intermediately susceptible. Furthermore, a high percentage (11.1 %) of penicillin-susceptible strains, for which MICs of penicillin were usually 0.06 or 0.03 μg/ml, yielded zone diameters of ≤ 19 mm with the oxacillin screen test and thus would have been falsely categorized as being resistant to penicillin.

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Doern, G.V., Brueggemann, A.B. & Pierce, G. Assessment of the oxacillin disk screening test for determining Penicillin resistance inStreptococcus pneumoniae . Eur. J. Clin. Microbiol. Infect. Dis. 16, 311–314 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01695637

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