Kirby-Bauer antibiotic testing

(noun)

This is a method to determine the sensitivity of microorganisms to specific antimicrobial drugs; greater drug efficacy yields larger microbe-free zones surrounding drug-containing disks after overnight growth on solid media.

Related Terms

Examples of Kirby-Bauer antibiotic testing in the following topics:

  • Kirby-Bauer Disk Susceptibility Test

    • Kirby-Bauer testing measures sensitivity of bacteria to antibiotics by culturing bacteria on solid growth media surrounding sources of drug.
    • Kirby-Bauer antibiotic testing (also called KB testing or disk diffusion antibiotic sensitivity testing) uses antibiotic-containing wafers or disks to test whether particular bacteria are susceptible to specific antibiotics.
    • Clinicians can use KB test results to choose appropriate antibiotics to combat a particular infection in a patient.
    • Thus, clinical application of KB testing results can decrease the frequency with which antibiotic-resistant bacteria evolve.
    • In Kirby–Bauer testing, discs containing antibiotics are placed on agar where bacteria are growing, and the antibiotics diffuse out into the agar.

  • Minimal Inhibitory Concentration (MIC)

    • In microbiology, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) is the lowest concentration of an antimicrobial (like an antifungal, antibiotic or bacteriostatic) drug that will inhibit the visible growth of a microorganism after overnight incubation.
    • MICs can be determined on plates of solid growth medium (called agar, shown in the "Kirby-Bauer Disk Susceptibility Test" atom) or broth dilution methods (in liquid growth media, shown in ) after a pure culture is isolated.
    • The minimum inhibitory concentration of the antibiotic is between the concentrations of the last well in which no bacteria grew and the next lower dose, which allowed bacterial growth.
    • Clinicians use MIC scores to choose which antibiotics to administer to patients with specific infections and to identify an effective dose of antibiotic.
    • To identify the lowest concentration required for a given antibiotic to inhibit bacterial growth, an identical amount of bacteria is introduced into wells of liquid media containing progressively lower concentrations of the drug.