Standardization of antimicrobial susceptibility testing

In summary, methods for measuring bacterial susceptibility to antimicrobial agents in vitro were initially developed with little direction or coordinated effort. When a need appeared, most laboratory workers simply devised a method that would solve their own immediate problem. That resulted in a chaotic array of testing procedures that were being used in different laboratories and most of those procedures were not carefully controlled. Standardization of methods being used in the United States was brought about under the guidance of Dr. John C. Sherris and many others. As a result of the efforts that occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s, susceptibility testing in the United States has reached a fairly sophisticated level of maturity. The National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards has accepted the challenge of maintaining the level of standardization that we have learned to expect.