Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing of Grown Blood Cultures by Combining Culture and Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction Is Rapid and Effective

Early administration of appropriate antibiotic therapy in bacteraemia patients dramatically reduces mortality. A new method for RApid Molecular Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing (RAMAST) that can be applied directly to positive blood cultures was developed and evaluated. species showed 95.0% agreement, with a major error rate of 5.0%. These agreements are comparable with those of the Phoenix system. Starting from a positive blood culture, the test was completed within 9 hours.This new rapid method for antibiotic susceptibility testing can potentially provide accurate results for most relevant bacteria commonly isolated from positive blood cultures in less time than routine methods