J Clin Pathol Qual Control.  1997 Jun;19(1):19-32.

Annual Report on External Quality Assessment in Clinical Microbiology in Korea (1996)

• Pai CH
• Kim DK
• Kim BC
• Kim EC
• Park JJ
• Suh JT
• Lee KW
• Lee KM
• Lee DH
• Cho KJ
• Choi TY
• Hong SI

Abstract

Two trials of external quality assessment for clinical microbiology were performed in 1996. A total of nine specimens were distributed. All except four specimens contained pure cultures of single bacterial pathogens; two contained single pathogen and two commensals of enteric origin; two contained two pathogens each. Five specimens containing six pathogens were distributed to 227 laboratories with 175 returns (77.1%) in Trial I and four specimens containing five pathogens to 194 laboratories with 171 returns (88.1%) in Trial II. The percentage of fully correct identification of 11 pathogens was 62.9% on the average compared with 75.3%(p<0.001) in 1994 and 82.4(p<) in 1995. As was expected, the laboratories in tertiary care hospitals performed significantly better than other laboratories(56.9%)(p<). The poor performance by the other laboratories was attributable in part to their failure to isolate two pathogens separately from mixed cultures or single pathogens from stool specimens containing normal flora, and to what appeared to be the partial loss of viability of two fastidious organisms, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Hemophilus parainfluenzae. The performance on antimicrobial susceptibility testing of 10 bacterial pathogens was generally acceptable except for Enterococcus faecium, S. pneumoniae, Moraxella catarrhalis and H. parainfluenzae. The majority of the participating laboratories failed to detect an intermediate resistance to vancomycin in E. faecium and a high level resistance to penicillin and third generation cephalosporins in S. pneumoniae. The susceptibilities of M. catarrhalis and H. parainfluenzae were reported erroneously by the majority of laboratories because they relied on the disk diffusion test instead of beta-lactamase test. As in the last year, disagreement was noted between reported zone sizes and their interpretation by a number of laboratories. The external quality assessment program of KSQACP should be continued with an increasing participation of clinical laboratories to improve the quality of diagnostic microbiology in Korea.

MeSH Terms

beta-Lactamases
Cephalosporins
Diffusion
Enterococcus faecium
Haemophilus
Korea*
Moraxella (Branhamella) catarrhalis
Paramyxoviridae Infections
Penicillins
Pneumonia
Streptococcus pneumoniae
Tertiary Healthcare
Vancomycin
Cephalosporins
Penicillins
Vancomycin
beta-Lactamases