A Focused Review on Commercially Available Automated Systems for Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing

The battle against antibiotic resistance demands innovative solutions for efficient and accurate antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST). Traditional methods, though reliable, are often time-consuming and labor-intensive, limiting their ability to provide timely results in clinical settings. In response, automated systems have emerged as a revolutionary tool, offering rapid, precise, and comprehensive AST processes. The purpose of this review article was to provide a comprehensive guide on automated methods for AST, exploring their principles, advantages over traditional techniques, and implications for clinical practice. By examining recent advancements in this field, we highlight how these innovative approaches can revolutionize our ability to detect antibiotic resistance swiftly and accurately, ultimately improving patient outcomes and combating the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance. The findings from the collected studies indicate that employing various automated techniques for assessing antibiotic resistance facilitates the identification of resistance and allows for precise detection of different pathogens from infectious samples. These automated methods have the potential to decrease hospital stay duration and future treatment costs. Moreover, by accurately detecting resistance more quickly, they can lead to more targeted treatments, ultimately reducing patient mortality rates.