Interpretive standards and quality control guidelines for imipenem susceptibility tests with 10-micrograms disks

Tests with 10-micrograms imipenem disks accurately categorized 98.5% of 551 bacterial isolates when interpretive breakpoints of less than or equal to 13 mm for resistant and greater than or equal to 16 mm for susceptible were used. Because a sufficient number of resistant or moderately susceptible strains were not available for testing, these interpretive standards must be considered tentative. Quality control limits for tests with Escherichia coli ATCC 25922 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853 are 26 to 32 and 20 to 28 mm, respectively. Zones obtained with Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923 were too large and variable to be useful for quality control purposes.