Multicenter comparison of the sensititre YeastOne Colorimetric Antifungal Panel with the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory standards M27-A reference method for testing clinical isolates of common and emerging Candida spp., Cryptococcus spp., and other yeasts and yeast-like organisms.

National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) standard guidelines are available for the antifungal susceptibility testing of common Candida spp. and Cryptococcus neoformans, but NCCLS methods may not be the most efficient and convenient procedures for use in the clinical laboratory. MICs of amphotericin B, fluconazole, flucytosine, itraconazole, and ketoconazole were determined by the commercially prepared Sensititre YeastOne Colorimetric Antifungal Panel and by the NCCLS M27-A broth microdilution method for 1,176 clinical isolates of yeasts and yeast-like organisms, including Blastoschizomyces capitatus, Cryptococcus spp., 14 common and emerging species of Candida, Hansenula anomala, Rhodotorula spp., Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Sporobolomyces salmonicolor, and Trichosporon beigelii. Colorimetric MICs of amphotericin B corresponded to the first blue well (no growth), and MICs of the other agents corresponded to the first purple or blue well. Three comparisons of MIC pairs by the two methods were evaluated to obtain percentages of agreement: 24- and 48-h MICs and 24-h colorimetric versus 48-h reference MICs. The best performance of the YeastOne panel was with 24-h MICs (92 to 100%) with the azoles and flucytosine for all the species tested, with the exception of C. albicans (87 to 90%). For amphotericin B, the best agreement between the methods was with 48-h MIC pairs (92 to 99%) for most of the species tested. The exception was for isolates of C. neoformans (76%). These data suggest the potential value of the YeastOne panel for use in the clinical laboratory.