Effect of incubation temperature and time on the precision of data generated by antibiotic disc diffusion assays

摘要

The influence on the precision of disc diffusion data of the conditions under which the tests were performed was examined by analysing multilaboratory data sets generated after incubation at 35 degrees C for 18h, at 28 degrees C for 24h and 22 degrees C for 24h and 48h. Analyses of these data sets demonstrated that precision was significantly and progressively decreased as the test temperature was reduced from 35 to 22 degrees C. Analysis of the data obtained at 22 degrees C also showed the precision was inversely related to the time of incubation. Temperature and time related decreases in precision were not related to differences in the mean zone sizes of the data sets obtained under these test conditions. Analysis of the zone data obtained at 28 and 22 degrees C as single laboratory sets demonstrated that reductions of incubation temperature resulted in significant increases in both intralaboratory and interlaboratory variation. Increases in incubation time at 22 degrees C were, however, associated with statistically significant increases in interlaboratory variation but not with any significant increase in intralaboratory variation. The significance of these observations for the establishment of the acceptable limits of precision of data sets that can be used for the setting of valid epidemiological cut-off values is discussed.