US 5,629,169 AGranted

Automated system and method for estimating antibiotic effectiveness from drug diffusion tests

AssigneeThe Analytic Sciences Corporation

InventorsDavid Izraelevitz, Karen S. Cochand

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Abstract

A method and apparatus for estimating drug effectiveness from a drug diffusion sample are provided. The drug diffusion sample includes a plate having a medium containing a test organism and a plurality of antibiotic disks positioned on the plate in a medium. An inhibition zone surrounds each of the antibiotic disks after a prescribed incubation period. The drug diffusion sample is illuminated, and an image of the drug diffusion sample is acquired with a video camera. The image is analyzed by determining the locations of the antibiotic disks, determining the average brightness and the brightness variance of the image in a region surrounding each of the antibiotic disks, and estimating the radius of the inhibition zone surrounding each of the antibiotic disks from the average brightness and the brightness variance. The radius of the inhibition zone is indicative of drug effectiveness.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A method for estimating antibiotic effectiveness from an antibiotic diffusion sample comprising a plate having a medium containing a population of a test organism and a plurality of antibiotic disks positioned on said plate in said medium, each of said antibiotic disks being impregnated with an antibiotic whose effectiveness is to be estimated, an inhibition zone surrounding each of said antibiotic disks after a prescribed incubation period, said method comprising the steps of:

illuminating said antibiotic diffusion sample;
acquiring an image of said illuminated antibiotic diffusion sample;
and
analyzing said image with an electronic digital computer, comprising the steps of:
determining locations of said antibiotic disks in said image;
determining an average brightness and a brightness variance of said image in a region surrounding each of said antibiotic disks;
and
estimating a radius of an inhibition zone surrounding each of said antibiotic disks from said average brightness and said brightness variance, thereby providing an estimated radius of said inhibition zone which is indicative of antibiotic effectiveness.

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Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.