Evaluation of Etest performed in Mueller-Hinton agar supplemented with glucose for antifungal susceptibility testing of clinical isolates of filamentous fungi.

Although reference broth microdilution protocol is currently available for filamentous fungi antifungal susceptibility testing (AFST), simpler alternatives as Etest(®) tend to be favoured in clinical routine, making their validation of utmost importance. In this study, Etest(®) method using 2% glucose supplemented Muller-Hinton agar was compared to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) M38-A2 protocol for filamentous fungi AFST. The echinocandins, caspofungin and anidulafungin, the azoles voriconazole and posaconazole, and the polyene amphotericin B were tested against 48 Aspergillus spp., seven Fusarium spp., one Beauveria bassiana and three Paecilomyces lilacinus isolates. The majority of the isolates were susceptible to the antifungals tested, and the overall level of agreement between the CLSI and Etest methods was 71.9% for one dilution and 99.7% when using two dilutions. Since interpretative breakpoints for filamentous fungi employing the CLSI or Etest methods are not available yet, the established epidemiological cut-off values for Aspergillus spp. were used to distinguish wild-type isolates from those with acquired resistance mechanisms. Forty-five Aspergillus strains did not evidence resistance mutations.