Pereira, Sónia GonçalvesVerdugo, JuanFonseca-Pinto, Rui2022-07-212022-07-212022-05http://hdl.handle.net/10400.8/7381Antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) is key to support clinical decision regarding bacterial infectious diseases treatment. In particular, it is applied to direct the most appropriate antimicrobial therapy to assure its success and thus prevent infection related health complications or even death. In addition, AST is very important to prevent the emergence of bacterial antimicrobial resistance and the spread of multi-resistant bacteria.Current standard AST require long periods of time to obtain results, which is an important limitation for the required targeted prescription of antimicrobials. Faced with the challenge of antimicrobial resistance, many proposals have been made to accelerate sample processing, however, the initial step of bacterial incubation prior to AST has not yet been circumvented, being the major contributor to the extremely time-consuming current AST available technologies.This work presents a new methodology to perform AST, in which the incubation time is reduced to a minimum and the AST process is based on optical technology, the Laser Speckle. Preliminary results of this new AST approach using Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus clinical strains, two of the most challenging pathogens worldwide, showed very promising results. This new technology may be the future solution to guide antimicrobial prescription, by possibly delivering results in as little as 30 minutes.engLaser SpeckleOptical ImagingAntimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (AST)conference object2022-07-11cv-prod-301915510.23919/mipro55190.2022.9803789