Russia-made Mueller–Hinton agar: compliance with contemporary requirements

At present, a rise of antimicrobial resistance requires that susceptibility of infectious agents to antimicrobial agents could be accurately evaluated as related errors may lead to selecting improper therapeutics provoking spread of drug resistance. Pathogen sensitivity to antimicrobial agents is commonly determined by a disc diffusion method. A quality of nutrient medium used in assays plays a crucial role influencing final results. In Russia, it turned out that regulatory documents such as the nationwide guidelines and clinical recommendations outlining methodology for antimicrobial susceptibility testing underlay availability in domestic market few nutrient media, including Mueller–Hinton Agar, AGV medium etc. exhibiting sometimes unsatisfactory quality. To harmonize such methodology with international requirements, theStateResearchCenterfor Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology has developed a technology and promoted manufacture of Russia-made Mueller–Hinton agar satisfying requirements of EUCAST documents, clinical guidelines, and ISO/TS 16782:2016. The main objective of this study was to compare quality of new agar product with five similar foreign media while examining 11 test strains by disc diffusion method. As a result, some of nutrient media available to the Russian market turned out to be off-standard: not all of them satisfy to the EUCAST requirements and clinical guidelines since diameter distribution for growth inhibition recommended by EUCAST for quality control does not fit into permissible range. Moreover, susceptibility of P. aeruginosa ATCC 27853 to aminoglycosides, fluoroquinolones, Meropenem, as well as S. aureus ATSS 25923 and E. faecalis ATCC 29212 to tigecycline was assessed with certain mistakes. The data obtained by us were analyzed in accordance to the new document ISO/TS 16782:2016 “Clinical laboratory testing — criterion for acceptable lots of dehydrated Mueller–Hinton agar and broth for antimicrobial susceptibility testing”, not approved yet In Russia. To determine potential reason for deviation of data from reference range, we measured concentration of bivalent metals in all nutrient media examined by atomic emission spectrometry with inductively coupled plasma. We determined new patterns affecting reliability of results on microbial antibiotic susceptibility. A need to check intralaboratory quality control of nutrient media was emphasized.