The Slow March toward Rapid Phenotypic Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing: Are We There Yet?

Antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) provides critical information for the management of patients with infections. The gold standard methods for assessing organism susceptibility are still based on growth and require incubation over relatively long periods of time. Until now, little progress has been made in developing rapid, growth-based, phenotypic AST systems. This commentary puts the recently FDA-cleared Accelerate PhenoTest (P. Pancholi et al., J Clin Microbiol 56:e01329-17, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1128/JCM.01329-17) in context by providing a historical perspective on attempts to accelerate phenotypic susceptibility results. In addition, some promising new innovations that promise to shorten the turnaround time for phenotypic AST will be briefly reviewed.