How Restrictions on Commercial Automated Susceptibility Testing Affects Patient Care

Jason Gallagher, PharmD, BCPS, FCCP, FIDSA, clinical professor of pharmacy practice, Temple University, explains how restrictions on commercial automated susceptibility testing can affect patient care.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“If commercial automated susceptibility testing is restricted, and not able to give us results for the organisms that the drug was not initially approved for, we won’t know if it’s likely to be active against the organisms causing infection that aren’t one of those few that made it into the label in the first place.

For example, when a new drug comes out, if it is active against highly-resistant organisms that didn’t make it into the original study, and those are not allowed to be tested against in the commercial automated susceptibility test, then we’ll have no idea whether it’s likely to work, even though it may be one of the better choices for this particular patient, and that’s really problematic.

The commercial susceptibility testing companies are not required to add new drugs to the panels, and there’s a substantial delay already, from the time the drugs are first approved, to when they’re added.”