While advancements have been made in some areas of pathology with diagnostic materials being screened using image analysis technologies, the reporting of cultures from agar plates remains a manual process. We compared the results for 2,163 urine cultures read by a reference panel of microbiologists using the routine laboratory process, and by an automated plate reading system, the APAS Independence (LBT Innovations Ltd., South Australia).

APAS Independence detected colonies with a sensitivity of 99.1% and a specificity of 99.3% on blood agar, while on MacConkey agar, the colony detection sensitivity was 99.4% and the specificity was 99.3%. The devices ability to enumerate growth had an accuracy of 89.2%, and the morphlogical identification of colonies showed a high level of perfromance for the colony types typical of Escherichia coli and the enteric bacilli. On blood agar, lactose-fermenting colonies were morphologically identified with a sensitivity of 98.9%, while on MacConkey agar they were identified with a sensitivity of 99.2%.

In this first clinical evaluation, APAS demonstrated high performance in the detection, enumeration, and colony classification of isolates compared to conventional plate-reading methods. The device found all cases reported by the laboratory and detected the most commonly encountered organisms found in urinary tract infections.

Conference Journal: Journal of Clinical Microbiology

‍Date: Feb 2016

‍Authors: Glasson, J., Hill, R., Summerford, M. and Giglio, S.

‍Citation: Glasson, J., Hill, R., Summerford, M. and Giglio, S., 2016. Evaluation of an image analysis device (APAS) for screening urine cultures. Journal of clinical microbiology, 54(2), pp.300-304.

‍doi: 10.1128/JCM.02365-15