New Easy-to-Use Disk Format. Hardy Diagnostics now offers a convenient way of testing ß-lactamase activity in bacteria. The rapid Nitrocef test consists of a disk that is impregnated with the Nitrocefin reagent, which is a chromogenic cephalosporin. This rapid test can yield clinically relevant information earlier than an MIC test. A positive ß-lactamase test can predict resistance to such antibiotics as penicillin, ampicillin, amoxicillin, and other ß-lactamase containing drugs for the following organisms: • Neisseria gonorrhoeae • Haemophilus spp. • Moraxella (Branhamella) catarrhalis • Staphylococcus spp. • Enterococcus spp. • Anaerobes (such as some species of Bacteroides, Porphyromonas, Clostridium, Fusobacterium, Prevotella) The rapid Nitrocef Disk test can be used for all of the above organisms with results in 5 minutes or less, with the exception of some Staphylococcus spp. that may take up to one hour. The ß-lactamase test is preferred to disk diffusion and agar dilution for the detection of plasmid-mediated beta-lactamase resistance in gonococci. These HardyDisks™ are packages loose in a glass vial.
A substance or reactant, sometimes referred to as nitrocefin reagent, intended to be used in microbial testing to detect the enzyme beta-lactamase, produced by a microorganism isolated from a clinical specimen by culture.
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