Effect of volume of solution per cylinder on estimation of antibiotic potency in diffusion assay

The volume of antibiotic solutions in cylinders used for diffusion assays is assumed to have no significant effect on estimation of potency. The size of zones of inhibition from cylinders containing 0.10, 0.20, and 0.30 mL of sample solution was compared with zones of inhibition from cylinders containing 0.20 mL of standard solutions. For zinc bacitracin, chlortetracycline.HCl, oxytetracycline, lincomycin.HCl, monensin Na, neomycin sulfate, K penicillin, streptomycin sulfate, and tylosin, the percent recovery (95-102) was optimum when both standard and sample cylinders contained the same volume (0.20 mL/cylinder). At 0.30 mL/cylinder for sample and 0.20 mL for standard solutions, there was a positive bias in potency of about 50%. At 0.10 mL/cylinder, there was a negative bias of approximately 25% except for neomycin, monensin, and bacitracin. For these antibiotics, the bias was about -50%. For hygromycin B, variation in volume of solution per cylinder has little effect on assay results. Experiments on commercial feeds and premixes gave essentially the same results as for the standard solutions experiments.