Theranostics 2017; 7(7):1795-1805. doi:10.7150/thno.19217 This issue Cite
Review
1. Center for Biosensors and Bioelectronics, The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA;
2. State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China;
3. School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA;
4. Institute of Biomedical Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, China;
5. Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic, Phoenix, Arizona 85054, USA;
6. Center for Immunotherapy, Vaccines, and Virotherapy, The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA;
7. School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA.
Infectious diseases caused by bacterial pathogens are a worldwide burden. Serious bacterial infection-related complications, such as sepsis, affect over a million people every year with mortality rates ranging from 30% to 50%. Crucial clinical microbiology laboratory responsibilities associated with patient management and treatment include isolating and identifying the causative bacterium and performing antibiotic susceptibility tests (ASTs), which are labor-intensive, complex, imprecise, and slow (taking days, depending on the growth rate of the pathogen). Considering the life-threatening condition of a septic patient and the increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in hospitals, rapid and automated diagnostic tools are needed. This review summarizes the existing commercial AST methods and discusses some of the promising emerging AST tools that will empower humans to win the evolutionary war between microbial genes and human wits.
Keywords: AST methods, antibiotic susceptibility tests