Dongeun Yong,¹ Kyungwon Lee,^1,2* Jong Hwa Yum,² Hee Bong Shin,¹ Gian Maria Rossolini,³ and Yunsop Chong¹

Department of Laboratory Medicine, Research Institute of Bacterial Resistance,¹ Brain Korea 21 Project for Medical Sciences, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea,² Dipartimento di Biologia Molecolare, Sezione di Microbiologia, Universita di Siena, I-53100 Siena, Italy³

Received 8 March 2002/ Returned for modification 16 May 2002/ Accepted 1 July 2002

Rapid detection of metallo-ß-lactamase (MBL)-producing gram-negative bacilli is necessary to prevent their dissemination. The method using a disk with imipenem plus 750 μg of EDTA differentiated all MBL-producing pseudomonads, and the sensitivity and specificity for acinetobacters were 95.7 and 91.0%, respectively. The imipenem-EDTA disks were stable for 12 and 16 weeks at 4 and -20°C, respectively.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, 134 Shinchon-dong, Seodaemoon-ku, Seoul 120-752, Korea. Phone: 82-2-361-5866. Fax: 82-2-313-0908.