[Determination of antibiotype by a computer program. Epidemiological significance and antibiogram-identification...

By means of a computer program disk diffusion diameter were analysed and an antibiotic susceptibility code (antibiotype) was determined for enterobacteriaceae. This code was a 6 figure-number. Each figure summarised susceptibility (susceptible or resistant) to 3 antibiotics. Thus a 18 serial antibiotics was necessary to calculate the 6 figure-code. At least following antibiotics were chosen for their characteristic behavior: amoxycillin, ticarcillin, amoxycillin + clavulanic acid, cephalothin, ticarcillin + clavulanic acid, cefotaxime, gentamycin, tobramycin, amikacin, nalidixic acid, pefloxacin, ciprofloxacin, fosfomycin and colistin. This code allowed three kind of utilisation: epidemiology by comparing biochemical and susceptibility patterns of same isolated species; laboratory control: a data base with main antibiotic susceptibility patterns for each species allowed a rapid compatibility control of biochemical identification with antibiogram. An inconsistent result lead to a checking of biochemical and susceptibility tests or to record a new code in a file to a further enrichment of the data base. Impression of a message depending of the code for a therapeutic purpose.