Multicenter comparison of the Sensititre YeastOne Colorimetric Antifungal Panel with the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards M27-A reference method for testing clinical isolates of common and emerging Candida spp., Cryptococcus spp., and other yeasts and yeast-like organisms

National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) standard guide lines are available for the antifungal susceptibility testing of common Can dida spp, and Cryptococcus neoformans, but NCCLS methods may not be the mos t efficient and convenient procedures for use in the clinical laboratory. M ICs of amphotericin B, fluconazole, flucytosine, itraconazole, and ketocona zole,were determined by the commercially prepared Sensitive YeastOne Colori metric Antifungal Panel and by the NCCLS M27-A broth microdilution method f or 1,176 clinical isolates of yeasts and yeast-like organisms, including Bl astoschizomyces capitatus, Cryptococcus spp,, 14 common and emerging specie s of Candida, Hansenula anomala, Rhodotorula spp,, Saccharomyces cerevisiae , Sporobolomyces salmonicolor, and Trichosporon beigelii, Colorimetric MICs of amphotericin B corresponded to the first blue well (no growth), and MIC s of the other agents corresponded to the first purple or blue well. Three comparisons of MIC pairs by the two methods were evaluated to obtain percen tages of agreement: 24- and 48-h MICs and 24-h colorimetric versus 48-h ref erence MICs, The best performance of the YeastOne panel was with 24-h MICs (92 to 100%) with the azoles and flucytosine for all the species tested, wi th the exception of C, albicans (87 to 90%). For amphotericin B, the best a greement between the methods was with 48-h MIC pairs (92 to 99%) for most o f the species tested. The exception was for isolates of C, neoformans (76%) , These data suggest the potential value of the YeastOne panel for use in t he clinical laboratory.