Antibiotic sensitivity - Lab Report Example

The third section contains the results generated from the lab report while the fourth section contains the discussions of the results generated herein. The last section has the conclusion on the overall matters discussed I the entire paper Antibiotic sensitivity is also referred to as the antibiotic susceptibility of bacteria to a given antibiotics. Susceptibility tests are conducted, in laboratories, to investigate which antibiotics would be suitable for treating a bacterial infection in question (National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards, 2002; Lalitha, Manayani, Priya, Jesudason, Thomas, & Steinhoff, 1997).

Various methods have been developed by scientists to help in testing for sensitivity/ susceptibility of bacteria to a given antibiotic. These methods include the CDS method (Murray, 1990), the Stokes method (Hiramatsu, Hanaki, Ino, Yabuta, Oguri, & Tenover, 1997), the E- test method (Lalitha, Manayani, Priya, Jesudason, Thomas, & Steinhoff, 1997), and Agar and Broth method (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2002) among others. These methods can be categorized as quantitative methods (Hamilton-Miller & Shah, 2000), qualitative methods (Tait-Kamradt, Davies, Appelbaum, Depardieu, Courvalin, & al., 2000), automated susceptibility tests (Malbruny, Werno, Anderson, Murdoch, & Leclercq., 2004), newer non- automated susceptibility tests (Chu, Afzah-Shah, Huang, Palepou, & Lyon, 2001), and the molecular tests (Kirby, Sader, Walsh, & Jones, 2004).

Each of the listed tests above is applicable in either of the two cases of bacterial resistance. Bacteria exhibit two kinds of resistance to antibiotics; these are the intrinsic resistance and the acquired resistance. Intrinsic resistance is a condition whereby the bacteria are naturally resistant to a given antibiotic even before its use. Acquired resistance, on the other hand, is acquired by