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. 2022 Aug 30;12(9):2106.
doi: 10.3390/diagnostics12092106.

Validation of Three MicroScan® Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Plates Designed for Low-Resource Settings

Jean-Baptiste Ronat  1   2   3 , Saoussen Oueslati  2 , Alessandra Natale  1 , Thomas Kesteman  4 , Wael Elamin  5   6 , Céline Langendorf  7 , Liselotte Hardy  8 , Olivier Vandenberg  9   10   11 , Thierry Naas  2   3
Affiliations

Validation of Three MicroScan® Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Plates Designed for Low-Resource Settings

Jean-Baptiste Ronat et al. Diagnostics (Basel). .

Abstract

Easy and robust antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) methods are essential in clinical bacteriology laboratories (CBL) in low-resource settings (LRS). We evaluated the Beckman Coulter MicroScan lyophilized broth microdilution panel designed to support Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) CBL activity in difficult settings, in particular with the Mini-Lab. We evaluated the custom-designed MSF MicroScan Gram-pos microplate (MICPOS1) for Staphylococcus and Enterococcus species, MSF MicroScan Gram-neg microplate (MICNEG1) for Gram-negative bacilli, and MSF MicroScan Fastidious microplate (MICFAST1) for Streptococci and Haemophilus species using 387 isolates from routine CBLs from LRS against the reference methods. Results showed that, for all selected antibiotics on the three panels, the proportion of the category agreement was above 90% and the proportion of major and very major errors was below 3%, as per ISO standards. The use of the Prompt inoculation system was found to increase the MIC and the major error rate for some antibiotics when testing Staphylococci. The readability of the manufacturer's user manual was considered challenging for low-skilled staff. The inoculations and readings of the panels were estimated as easy to use. In conclusion, the three MSF MicroScan MIC panels performed well against clinical isolates from LRS and provided a convenient, robust, and standardized AST method for use in CBL in LRS.

Keywords: MicroScan; antibiotic susceptibility testing; clinical bacteriology; low-resource settings.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The manufacturer of the panels had no role in the design of the study, in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Example of the three MSF MicroScan MIC panels. (a) MicroScan MSF dried overnight Gram-positive panel, (b) MicroScan MSF dried overnight Gram-negative panel, (c) MSF dried overnight fastidious panel.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Prototype of the microplate viewer box by JP Selecta, used for visual reading. The background at the bottom can be changed from black to white [26].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Photo of the inhibition zone produced by Salmonella Typhimurium with: (a) initial reference method with Mueller–Hinton agar from Becton, Dickinson and a disc from Bio-Rad with no sign of heteroresistance; (b,c) sign of heteroresistance when using bioMérieux Mueller–Hinton Enterobacterales agar (bioMérieux Inc., Marcy l’ Étoile, France) and an AMC disc from i2a (i2a, Montpellier, France).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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