Two-center collaborative evaluation of performance of the BD phoenix automated microbiology system for identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing of gram-negative bacteria.

The performance of the BD Phoenix Automated Microbiology System (BD Diagnostic Systems, Sparks, MD) was assessed for identification (ID) and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) of the majority of clinically encountered bacterial isolates in a European collaborative two-center trial. A total of 494 bacterial isolates including various species of the Enterobacteriaceae and 110 nonfermentative gram-negative bacteria were investigated: of these, 385 were single patient isolates, and 109 were challenge strains tested at one center. The performance of the Phoenix extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) test was also evaluated for 203 strains of Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Klebsiella oxytoca included in the study. Forty-two antimicrobial drugs were tested, including members of the following drug classes: aminoglycosides, beta-lactam antibiotics, beta-lactam/beta-lactamase inhibitors, carbapenems, cephems, monobactams, folate antagonists, quinolones, and others. Phoenix system ID results were compared to those of the laboratories' routine ID systems (API 20E and API CHE, ATB ID32E, ID32GN, and VITEK 2 [bioMérieux, Marcy l'Etoile, France]); Phoenix AST results were compared to those of frozen standard broth microdilution (SBM) panels according to NCCLS (now CLSI) guidelines (NCCLS document M100-S9, approved standard M7-A4). Discrepant results were repeated in duplicate. Concordant IDs of 98.4 and 99.1% were observed for the Enterobacteriaceae and the nonfermentative group, respectively. For AST results, the overall essential agreement was 94.2%; the category agreement was 97.3%; and the very major error rate, major error rate, and minor error rate were 1.6, 0.6, and 1.9%, respectively. In terms of ESBL detection, Phoenix results were 98.5% concordant with those of the reference system, with 98.0% sensitivity and 98.7% specificity. In conclusion, the Phoenix ID results showed high agreement with results of the systems to which they were being compared: the AST performance was highly equivalent to that of the SBM reference method, and the system proved to be very accurate for the detection of ESBL producers.