Clinical Laboratory Testing for Antimicrobial Resistance

After almost 50 years of clinical use of antibiotics and chemotherapeutic agents, many aspects of antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) in the clinical laboratory are still actively discussed, under development, or undergoing rapid change Browsing in the more than 1000 pages of Antibiotics in Laboratory Medicine in its second edition (Lorian 1986), one feels overwhelmed by the magnitude and complexity of the clinical laboratory aspects of antibiotics and chemotherapeutic agents.