Antimicrobial susceptibility testing and profiling of Nocardia species and other aerobic actinomycetes from South Africa: comparative evaluation of broth microdilution versus the Etest.

ABSTRACT: Nocardiosis is an underrecognized clinical entity in South Africa, for which interspecies epidemiological and clinical differences are poorly understood. The taxonomical state of flux and the lack of a simple antimicrobial susceptibility testing method are partly responsible. Definitive identification is molecularly based, which further complicates the study of this ubiquitous organism, as this methodology is beyond the scope of most routine diagnostic laboratories. The Etest methodology has been proposed as an alternative to the reference broth microdilution method, although there have been a limited number of comparative studies. We profiled 51 clinical isolates of aerobic actinomycetes, including 39 Nocardia species, using sequence-based (16S rRNA) identification. Broth microdilution an

SUBMITTER: Lowman W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3008459 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature