A Selective Culture Medium for Screening Cefiderocol Resistance in Enterobacterales, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and...

Cefiderocol (FDC) is a siderophore cephalosporin with a broad spectrum of activity against many multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. Acquired resistance to FDC has been already reported among Gram-negative isolates, thus highlighting the need for rapid and accurate identification of such resistant pathogens, in order to control their spread. Therefore, the SuperFDC medium was developed to screen FDC-resistant Enterobacterales, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Acinetobacter baumannii. After testing several culture conditions, a selective medium was set up by supplementing an iron-depleted agar medium with 8 μg/mL of FDC and evaluated with a collection of 68 FDC-susceptible and 33 FDC-resistant Gram-negative isolates exhibiting a variety of β-lactam resistance mechanisms. The sensitivity and specificity of detection of this medium were evaluated at 97% and 100%, respectively. In comparison with the reference broth microdilution method, only 3% very major errors were found. In addition, excellent detection performances were obtained by testing spiked stools with a lower limit of detection ranging between 10⁰ and 10³ CFU/mL. The SuperFDC medium allows detection of FDC-resistant Gram-negative isolates regardless of their corresponding resistance mechanisms.