Effect of inoculum form on in vitro antifungal susceptibilities of Aspergillus spp.

The effect of inoculum form, i.e. ungerminated conidia, germinated conidia and hyphae on the in vitro antifungal susceptibility of 12 strains belonging to Aspergillus spp. was compared using a broth microdilution method. The isolates were tested three times on different days against amphotericin B, itraconazole and ketoconazole. There were no significant differences between MICs obtained with the three types of inoculum (P > 0.05) for any antifungal tested. The degree of reproducibility of the tests was high (>or=75%) for all antifungals with each type of inoculum, except for itraconazole (58.3%) when the inoculum was prepared with ungerminated conidia.