Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System
PADLS Conferences Spring 2001 8. Understanding reports
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Just what do all those numbers mean on an MIC report? How are the interpretations of sensitive, intermediate, or resistant determined? Who is NCCLS and what do they do? Does an antibiogram really give me clinically relevant information?

The process of determining breakpoints and validating laboratory results for clinical use is a complicated one. Each class of antimicrobial drug has characteristics that determine the efficacy of that drug in a particular disease situation (the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics), and these characteristics can be different between animal species. Also, the classes of antimicrobial drugs differ in which pharmacokinetic property causes them to be bacteriocidal (i.e. maximum achievable serum concentration, area under the curve, time above MIC, etc.), which can affect the dosage regimen. Often, the necessary information to determine the clinically relevant breakpoint is missing, due to the expense involved in performing the necessary field trials. However, the decreasing repertoire of antimicrobial agents available to veterinarians has resulted in collective efforts to garner this information, especially for the older compounds.

In this talk, I will attempt to answer the opening questions, and distill the information to a level that is practical for practicing veterinarians and laboratory diagnosticians who may be answering questions from practicing veterinarians.

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