The European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing - EUCAST

Invitation to EUCAST webinars with live discussion

EUCAST will arrange a series of web-based live updates and discussion forums. It is free and available to anyone with an interest in EUCAST guidelines and developments. Each meeting will last for 60 minutes, will have a theme, there will be one or two short presentations but 30 minutes will be set aside for Q&A and discussion. Dates, times and links are posted below. Each meeting will be repeated three times during a day, 8.00, 13.00 and 16.00. 

When asked for a password, enter "EUCAST".

You may have questions during the meeting which were not answered - use the EUCAST subject related contact form.

1. Wednesday 11 November 8.00 - 9.00 (CET): EUCAST general update, news, new agents, new species, new methods, and the breakpoint table 2021.

For the morning meeting, copy this link and paste into your browser: 
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84429333435?pwd=d1VKZWdaMnE2bHNva01GdEdnbEZCQT09 

2. Wednesday 11 November 13.00 - 14.00 (CET): EUCAST general update, news, new agents, new species, new methods, and the breakpoint table 2021.

For the midday meeting, copy this link and paste it into your browser: 

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85621643061?pwd=bXU0QjkrUzlOVURZWm5lWWptUjUwdz09 

3. Wednesday 11 November 16.00 - 17.00 (CET): EUCAST general update, news, new agents, new species, new methods, and the breakpoint table 2021.

For the afternoon meeting, copy this link and paste it into your browser:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81951921448?pwd=ckRiMnBEOGE0RVFsQkUwZG82RERjQT09 

4. Friday 20 November 8.00, 13.00 and 16.00 (CET): New definitions of S, I and R, the correlation between breakpoints and dosing/exposure, and if there is time, the Area of Technical Uncertainty. Link invitations for the three time slots are in this document. 

In preparation for the zoom updates, we will post a few pdf-files.

1. General description of updates planned for Breakpoint table v 11.0 (2021). The table itself will be published for consultation on or near the 5th of December. 
2. General presentation of EUCAST activities

EUCAST

EUCAST is a standing committee jointly organized by ESCMID, ECDC and European national breakpoint committees. EUCAST was formed in 1997. It has been chaired by Ian Phillips (1997 - 2001), Gunnar Kahlmeter (2001 - 2012), Rafael Canton 2012 - 2016) and Christian Giske (2016 - ). Its scientific secretary is Derek Brown (1997 - 2016) and John Turnidge (2016 - ). Its webmaster is Gunnar Kahlmeter (2001 - ). From 2016, Rafael Canton is the Clinical Data Co-ordinator and from 2012, Gunnar Kahlmeter is the Technical Data Co-ordinator and Head of the EUCAST Development Laboratory.

Since the very beginning, Johan Mouton, was important to EUCAST in that he was an ardent supporter of European harmonisation and of bringing PKPD to bear on breakpoint setting. Johan died in the evening of Tuesday 9 July, 2019 .The Steering Committee meeting 8 - 9 of July was the only meeting since 2002 to which Johan could not travel.  We shall miss Johan for his courage and his passion for getting it right! Some of our memories of Johan are on the ESCMID website.

The EUCAST Development Laboratory for antibacterial agents is located in Sweden and can be addressed through gunnar.kahlmeter[at]eucast.org or erika.matuschek[at]eucast.org.

The EUCAST Development Laboratory for antifungal agents is located in Denmark and can be addressed through maca[at]ssi.dk.

For EUCAST subcommittees - see page Subcommittees.

EUCAST deals with breakpoints and technical aspects of phenotypic in vitro antimicrobial susceptibility testing and functions as the breakpoint committee of EMA and ECDC. EUCAST does not deal with antibiotic policies, surveillance or containment of resistance or infection control. The Steering Committee is the decision making body. It is supported by a General Committee with representatives from European and other countries.

Consultation! The EUCAST consultation process is publicly available on the EUCAST website. All major decisions are subject to 4 - 12 weeks of consultation.  

Warnings! Users of EUCAST guidelines are encouraged to make EUCAST aware of malfunctioning AST material and devices. Investigations into such reports sometimes result in an official EUCAST Warning which is then posted on the EUCAST Warnings website. 

Since 2019, all European countries are on European guidelines and from 2020, ECDC will only accept "data for surveillance purposes" generated by laboratories on EUCAST breakpoints and methods.

Many countries outside Europe have also decided to follow EUCAST guidance.

Breakpoints for new agents are set as part of the licensing process for new agents through EMA or national medicines agencies. EUCAST breakpoints are available in devices for automated susceptibility testing but with some limitations, depending on the system.

EUCAST develops a disk diffusion susceptibility test method calibrated to EUCAST MIC breakpoints. New agents rapidly obtain zone diameter breakpoint correlates but there are some limitations. Previous disk diffusion tests from the Swedish, French and British committees have been abandoned and laboratories advised to switch to EUCAST recommended methods.

Anyone with an interest in antimicrobial agents in general and antimicrobial breakpoints in particular is invited to contact EUCAST, ESCMID or one of the National Breakpoint Committees. Use the EUCAST subject related contact form.

To cite the EUCAST website or a document on the EUCAST website: List the document name, version, year and the full web adress. For example, if you want to refer to the current EUCAST breakpoint table, the citation reads "The European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing. Breakpoint tables for interpretation of MICs and zone diameters, version 10.0, 2020" (or another relevant version and year). http://www.eucast.org/clinical_breakpoints/.

Copyright

In English: The copyright of all documents, data, presentations and videos published on the EUCAST website remains with EUCAST. All are freely available for re-use if reference to the EUCAST website is given and they are not resold.
Any secondary publication of documents, data, presentations and videos must be referenced with the declaration that "These data have (or this document, presentation or video has) been produced in part under ECDC service contracts and made available by EUCAST at no cost to the user and can be accessed on the EUCAST website www.eucast.org. EUCAST recommendations are frequently updated and the latest versions are available at www.eucast.org."

En FranГ§ais: Les droits d’auteurs de tous les documents (prГ©sentations, vidГ©o) Г©tablis par l’EUCAST et publiГ©s en ligne sur le site de l’EUCAST restent la propriГ©tГ© de l’EUCAST.  Ces documents (prГ©sentation, vidГ©o) sont libres d’accГЁs et gratuits. Ils peuvent  ГЄtre utilisГ©s Г  condition d’indiquer la rГ©fГ©rence du site EUCAST ; par contre, il n’est en aucun cas permis de les revendre.
 Toute publication se rГ©fГ©rant Г  ces donnГ©es doit comporter la mention suivante “ces donnГ©es ont Г©tГ© produites par l’EUCAST, notamment lors de collaborations avec l’ECDC. Elles sont accessibles librement et gratuitement grГўce au  site de l’EUCAST www.eucast.org. Les recommandations de l’EUCAST sont frГ©quemment mises Г  jour et les derniГЁres versions sont accessibles sur www.eucast.org."

This page was last edited June, 2020