Detection of high- and moderately high-level resistance to gentamicin and streptomycin in Enterococcus faecium by a disc diffusion method.

We evaluated an agar disc diffusion test for the detection of high-level (> or = 2000 mg/L) and moderately high-level resistance to gentamicin (MIC, > or = 128- < or = 1024 mg/L) and streptomycin (MIC, > or = 256- < or = 1024 micrograms/ml) with 70 clinical isolates of Enterococcus faecium. Results obtained using disks containing 120 micrograms gentamicin and 300 micrograms streptomycin were compared with MICs determined by an agar dilution method. Based on the scattergrams, the closest zone diameter correlations with MIC breakpoints were as follows: susceptible, > or = 16 mm; and resistant, < or = 10 mm, for both streptomycin and gentamicin. No major or very major errors were found with either aminoglycoside using these values. We conclude that agar disk diffusion test can be used to accurately detect high-level or moderately high-level gentamicin and streptomycin resistance in E. faecium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]