In: Anatomy and Physiology
Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion test
The Kirby-Bauer disc-diffusion method is the most widely used antibiotic susceptibility test to determine which antibiotic is used to treat a particular infection. This is used to test the effectiveness of antibiotics on a specific microorganism.
In Kirby-Bauer method, agar plate is first spread with the bacteria and discs of antibiotics are added to the plate. The bacteria is allowed to grow overnight and the bacterial growth around the disc is interpreted.
The circular area around the antibiotic disc where bacterial colonies do not grow is known as the zone of inhibition.
The observed zone of inhibition is them compared to the size of the standard zone.
A larger zone of inhibition around an antibiotic disc indicates that the bacteria are more sensitive to that particular antibiotic in the disc, so they do not grow around the disc. A small zone or no zone of inhibition indicate resistance to that particular antibiotic.