Etest

It is a laboratory test used in healthcare settings to help guide physicians by indicating what concentration of antimicrobial could successfully be used to treat patients' infections.

[citation needed] The predefined Etest gradient remains stable for at least 18 to 24 hours; that is, a period that covers the critical times of many species of fastidious and non-fastidious organisms.

In general, media recommendations from the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) and European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST) are considered appropriate for Etest.

Simplex C76, Nema C88, and Retro C80 are easy to use, reducing operator fatigue, saving time and improving the quality of results by increasing reproducibility.

Etest and related instruments offer one of the most efficient methods for generating on-scale MIC values across 15 doubling dilutions for susceptibility testing of a wide range of drug-bug combinations, including fastidious organisms.

Etest was first presented at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in Los Angeles in 1988 as a novel gradient concept for MIC determinations.