Lab Medicine Landmark-class

CLSI Best Practices for Evaluating Antimicrobial Susceptibility Tests

The CLSI Methods Development and Standardization Working Group published consensus best practices for the systematic evaluation of commercial antimicrobial susceptibility tests, addressing widespread design and analysis flaws in published performance studies. The guidelines cover study design, isolate selection, reference method comparisons, error rate calculations, and data presentation standards essential for interpretable AST evaluations.

The original study

CLSI Methods Development and Standardization Working Group Best Practices for Evaluation of Antimicrobial Susceptibility Tests.

Authors
Humphries RM, Ambler J, Mitchell SL, Castanheira M, Dingle T, Hindler JA, et al.
Journal
Journal of clinical microbiology
Type
Journal Article, Review
PMID
29367292
Read the original study →

Original abstract

Effective evaluations of antimicrobial susceptibility tests (ASTs) require robust study design. The Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) Subcommittee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing has recognized that many published studies reporting the performance of commercial ASTs (cASTs) suffer from major design and/or analysis flaws, rendering the results difficult or impossible to interpret. This minireview outlines the current consensus of the Methods Development and Standardization Working Group of the CLSI Subcommittee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing regarding best practices for systematic evaluation of the performance of an AST, including the analysis and presentation of essential data intended for publication.