The usefulness of nucleic acid tests for the determination of antimicrobial resistance

Abstract

Resistance development often represents the major cause of treatment failure and is a clinical problem in a number of microorganisms. Traditional methods for resistance determination may within a few years be replaced by nucleic acid (NA) tests. The most commonly used NA tests available today are however not used in the clinical laboratory on a daily routine work basis. As fabrication costs reduce and validated targeted assays are developed, it is most likely that NA tests will become important alternatives outside the research laboratories for determination of antimicrobial resistance.