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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