[Accuracy of Etest method to study Campylobacter spp. susceptibility to erythromycin, ciprofloxacin and tetracycline].

Introduction: In industrialized countries Campylobacter jejuni is the enteropathogen most frequently isolated from the feces of patients with gastroenteritis. The Etest accuracy to categorize Campylobacter spp. susceptibility to erythromycin, ciprofloxacin and tetracycline was evaluated.

Methods: Ninety strains were studied. The Etest® was performed following the manufacturer's instructions on commercial plates of Mueller-Hinton blood. The breakpoints were those recommended by the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) for broth microdilution. The gold standard was the broth microdilution method as recommended by CLSI.

Results: The Etest agreement with the reference method was 100%, 97% and 98% for erythromycin, ciprofloxacin and tetracycline, respectively. No major or very major errors were found.

Conclusions: The Etest results are equivalent to those obtained using the gold standard. The Etest is a valid method to determine susceptibility to tetracycline. It is also a suitable method to categorize strains classified as non-resistant to erythromycin and ciprofloxacin by the diffusion method.