Glupczynski, Gerald
[UCL]
Broutet, N.
[Laboratoire de bactériologie, Hôpital Pellegrin, Bordeaux, France]
Cantagrel, A.
[Laboratoire de bactériologie, Hôpital Pellegrin, Bordeaux, France]
Andersen, L. P.
[Laboratoire de bactériologie, Hôpital Pellegrin, Bordeaux, France]
Alarcon, T
López-Brea, M.
[Department of Clinical Microbiology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark]
Mégraud, F.
[Department of Clinical Microbiology, Hospital de la Princesa, Madrid, Spain]
A multicentre study was carried out in order to validate the E test in comparison with the reference agar dilution method for testing the susceptibility of Helicobacter pylori to amoxicillin, clarithromycin, and metronidazole. Ten clinical isolates and one control collection isolate ( Helicobacter pylori ATCC 43504) were tested blindly at four centres according to a uniform methodology. The E test showed excellent intra- and inter-laboratory correlations with the agar dilution method for amoxicillin and clarithromycin (>98% agreement within 2 log(2) dilution steps). For metronidazole, however, the E test revealed significantly higher minimum inhibitory concentration values (>2 log(2)) against 5 of the 10 Helicobacter pylori strains tested. Overall, neither method was found reliable for testing the susceptibility of Helicobacter pylori to metronidazole, since both tended to lack reproducibility.
Glupczynski, Gerald ; Broutet, N. ; Cantagrel, A. ; Andersen, L. P. ; Alarcon, T ; et. al. Comparison of the E test and agar dilution method for antimicrobial suceptibility testing of Helicobacter pylori.. In: European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases, Vol. 21, no. 7, p. 549-552 (2002)