Comparison of the APAS Independence Automated Plate Reader System with the Manual Standard of Care for Processing Urine Culture Specimens

Urine cultures are among the highest-volume tests in clinical microbiology laboratories and usually require considerable manual labour to perform. The University of California San Diego (UCSD) evaluated the APAS Independence automated plate reader system and compared it to their manual standard of care (SOC) for processing urine cultures. The study examined the growth patterns for potential discrepancies, microbial identifications, and ASTs to decipher whether similar results could be obtained using either workflow.

The study examined 1,519 urine cultures using both workflows and found that only 4.4% had growth pattern discrepancies and 3.69% pathogen identification discrepancies, which involved additional microbes being identified by the APAS-enabled workflow, resulting in greater scrutiny of each plate for potential pathogens rather than the SOC workflow. The findings indicate that using the APAS system can expedite urine culture results, while largely identifying the pathogens responsible for UTIs and determining their ASTs, with no significant differences in the AST results compared to the SOC workflow. There was also a significant difference in the time taken for handling plates, where the APAS system provided a positive influence.

Journal: Microbiology Spectrum, ASM Journals

Date: August 2022

Authors: Chiu, M., Kuo, P., Lecrone, K., Garcia, A., Chen, R., Quach, N.E., Tu, X.M. and Pride, D.T.

Citation: Chiu, M., Kuo, P., Lecrone, K., Garcia, A., Chen, R., Quach, N.E., Tu, X.M. and Pride, D.T. 2022. Comparison of the APAS Independence Automated Plate Reader System with the Manual Standard of Care for Processing Urine Culture Specimens. Microbiology Spectrum. American Society for Microbiology. e01442-22

doi: 10.1128/spectrum.01442-22