Impact of Alternative Growth Supplements on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing of Neisseria gonorrhoeae

Qian Zhou,1,2 Wenqi Xu,1,2 Deju Xia,1,2 Xiaoyu Zhu,1,2 Yan Han,1,2 Kai Chen,1,2 Yueping Yin1,2 1Institute of Dermatology and Hospital for Skin Diseases, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China; 2National Center for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Control, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Nanjing, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Wenqi Xu; Yueping Yin, Institute of Dermatology and Hospital for Skin Diseases, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China, Email xuwq@ncstdlc.org; yinyp@ncstdlc.orgPurpose: The accurate detection of antibiotic susceptibility of Neisseria gonorrhoeae (N. gonorrhoeae) is of great importance for the treatment of patients with gonorrhea as well as to hinder the progress of drug resistance. To promote the application of gonococcal antibiotic susceptibility monitoring in primary hospitals and remote medical institutions, this study evaluated the effect of alternative growth supplements on the antibiotic susceptibility testing of N. gonorrhoeae isolates.Methods: We divided the antimicrobial-containing media into three groups by adding different growth supplements (sterile defibrinated sheep blood, bovine hemoglobin, and Vitox). We tested the antimicrobial susceptibility of 80 N. gonorrhoeae isolates in different groups against eight antibiotics. Nonparametric signed-rank tests were utilized to compare the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) results of each group. Taking the MIC results of Vitox group as expected, the essential agreement (EA) and category agreement (CA) of the other two groups were calculated.Results: For the group using sheep blood as growth supplements, the EA values and CA values of each antibiotic were above 90.00% and minor error rates were less than 7.00%. No very major error and major error were observed. For the group using hemoglobin as growth supplements, th