Emerging technologies for rapid phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility testing of clinical isolates of bacteria

Providing timely and accurate antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) results is a crucial component of clinical microbiology practice. Commercial rapid AST (RAST) is an emerging and quickly expanding area. These phenotypic RAST systems use various novel methods to monitor bacterial growth and replication in order to shorten the duration of time required for testing. Implementation of RAST has the potential to expedite antimicrobial therapeutic optimization, which can improve patient care. This minireview describes the current state of commercial phenotypic RAST including tests designed to report antimicrobial susceptibilities directly from clinical specimens.