What is new in the diagnosis of tuberculosis? Part II: Techniques for drug susceptibility testing

Drug susceptibility testing can be performed based on mycobacterial cultivation on solid media, either egg or agar-based. In the direct test a set of drug-containing and drug-free media is inoculated directly with concentrated specimen. The advantage of the direct method over indirect method is that the results are available sooner (within 3 weeks on agar plates), and better represent the patient’s original bacterial populatio