Urine cultures are amongst the highest volume tests run in clinical microbiology laboratories and usually require considerable manual labour to perform. This study compared the APAS Independence automated plate reader system to the laboratory's standard-of-care (SOC) for processing urine culture plates to evaluate whether APAS Independence would expedite quality results while reducing manual steps required to process urine cultures.

Over a 4-month period, duplicate urine culture for 1535 specimens were evaluated to compare the APAS Independence growth interpretation including differences in enumeration and growth descriptions to those of the lab's manual SOC method in a blinded manner. To take it a step further the lab also tested antimicrobial susceptibility testing of (AST) of the pathogens recovered by both methods using microbroth dilutions with the BD Phoenix instrument, to assess the impact of an APAS Independence implemented workflow on turnaround-times for cultures with AST results.

Given the significant manual labour required to perform urine cultures, the APAS Independence System has the potential to reduce manual steps while maintaining the identity and antimicrobial susceptibilities of urinary pathogens.

Oral Presentation: University of California San Diego

‍Conference: ECCMID 2022, Lisbon

‍Date: April 2022

‍Authors: Kuo, P., Chiu, M., Ramos, P., Barba, R. and Pride, D.T.

‍Citation: Kuo, P., Chiu, M., Ramos, P., Barba, R. and Pride, D.T. 2022. Comparison of the APAS Independence Automated Plate Reader System with manual standard-of-care for processing urine culture specimens. ECCMID 2022. Lisbon.