Development of global standards for antimicrobial susceptibility testing: The ISO initiative

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has recently provided an opportunity to define a global standard reference method for antimicrobial susceptibility testing and to delineate acceptable performance criteria for antimicrobial susceptibility testing devices. A working group organized under the auspices of ISO Technical Committee 212 has worked closely with a working group of the European Committee on Normalization to develop the two global standards. The global reference method is the broth microdilution method that is presently described by both the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute and the European Union Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing. Experts from 13 countries that formed the membership of the working groups have endeavored over the past 3 years to agree upon the international reference method and to define for the first time an outline for objective assessment of commercial devices that can be used for routine susceptibility testing in clinical microbiology laboratories.