[Identification of Gram negative rods and evaluation of their antibiotic sensitivity: comparison of the BIOTEST MHK/ID-system with the API 20E-system and the agar diffusion test].

BIOTEST MHK/ID is a new system for the identification of gramnegative fermentative and non fermentative rods and for the simultaneous determination of the minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) against 15 antimicrobial drugs. Its identification system was compared with the API 20E kit. When the computer generated identification manuals for each of the systems were used 99.5% of the 190 strains tested were identified. Of these identifications 98.4% were identical. Comparing the results of altogether 16 biochemical reactions 92.3% (table 4) were conformable. Considering each single test low agreement was found with the results of the Citrate-, Urea-, Voges-Proskauer- and Arginindehydrolase-tests (76.8, 79.5, 85.3 and 86.8% agreement, respectively). The BIOTEST MHK/ID system yielded more positive reactions. But despite of these differences there was no influence on the accuracy in identifying the species. Thus, both systems must be considered equally suited to identify gramnegative rods. The results of both BIOTEST MHK/ID system (MIC-values) and the agardiffusion test (inhibition zone sizes) were transferred into the interpretative criteria "sensitive", "intermediate" and "resistant" (table 1) and compared for each strain. The overall-agreement amounted to 93.0% (table 7). With the MIC-test, however, more (7.2%) strains were found "intermediate" than with the agardiffusion test (3.1%, table 8).