ABSTRACT

This chapter describes the more commonly used aminoglycoside assay methods in some detail and presents some of the information that has been generated from evaluation studies of the various methods. Most of the microbiologic assay methods presently available use either the agar well or disk diffusion techniques for measuring serum concentrations of the aminoglycoside antibiotics. The concentration of the aminoglycoside is determined by measuring zones of microbial growth inhibition surrounding the wells of disks containing the patient’s serum or known concentration of the antibiotics. The homogeneous enzyme immunoassays have been utilized as a means of measuring many different drugs, haptens, as well as aminoglycoside antibiotics in various biological fluids. Free aminoglycoside in serum competes with the enzyme-labeled aminoglycoside for the antibody and subsequently decreases the antibody-induced inactivation of the enzyme.