Does antibiotic resistance gene detection alone provide enough data for antibiotic treatment decisions?
Studies have shown that multiple genes influence antibiotic susceptibility, but the relationship between genotypic and phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility is unclear. In this paper, we analyzed the concordance between the presence of antibiotic resistance (ABR) genes and antibiotic susceptibility results in urine samples collected from patients with symptomatic urinary tract infection (UTI). Results from ABR gene detection and P-AST of urine samples from 1155 patients showed a 60% concordance between the presence or absence of ABR genes and corresponding antimicrobial susceptibility and a 40% discordance rate. This 40% rate shows that the detection of ABR genes alone may not provide reliable data to make informed clinical decisions in UTI management.