This study evaluated the susceptibility of 123 Xanthomonas maltophilia strains to ticarcillin, ticarcillinclavulanate, ampicillin, amoxicillin-clavulanate, ampicillin-sulbactam, piperacillin, piperacillin-tazobactam, imipenem, and ciprofloxacin by Kirby-Bauer disk, E test, and Sensititre dehydrated microdilution MIC and conventional agar dilution MIC methodology. Intermediate susceptibility breakpoints for members of the family Enterobacteriaceae were used. When results were analyzed as MICs for 50 and 90%Yo of the strains tested and percentages of strains susceptible at the breakpoint, good correlation between the methods was observed, with ticarcillin-clavulanate clearly the most active P-lactam by all four methods. However, when the various methods were compared with the agar dilution methodology by regression analysis, poor r2 values (0.3 to 0.7)were obtained for compounds with sufficient on-scale values to permit analysis. When the number of strains with log2 ratios of reference agar dilution MICs to test MICs of +3 to -3 were analyzed, correlation was also poor, with many major and very major discrepancies for all methods tested. Results obtained with time-kill studies of nine strains with discrepant ticarcillin-clavulanate MICs appeared to correlate best when compared at 24 h with agar dilution MICs. The concentration of ticarcillin-clavulanate required to reduce the colony count by .2 log10 reduction values for eight of nine strains compared with that for growth controls was <16.0/2.0 ,ug/ml at 6 h and ranged from 16.0/2.0 ,ug/ml to 128.0/2.0 ,ug/ml at 24 h. Parallel kill curves with piperacillin4azobactam yielded .2 log1o reduction values ranging from -16.0/4.0 ,ug/ml to 128.0/4.0 ,ug/ml at 6 h and >128.0/4.0 ,ug/ml at 24 h. The susceptibility method of choice for X. maltophilia has not yet been standardized, but time-kill studies correlated best with agar dilution MICs.Infections with Xanthomonas maltophilia are increasingly encountered, especially in immunocompromised patients (9,(14)(15)(16)25). This organism is inherently resistant to most P-lactam and non-13-lactam agents by virtue of permeability barriers and elaboration of at least two ,B-lactamases; trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole and, perhaps, moxalactam are currently suggested as the drugs of choice for treating infections with this organism (4, 7, 9-11, 14-16, 25). P-Lactam resistance in X maltophilia is mediated by production of at least two P-lactamases-a zinc-dependent metalloenzyme that breaks down carbapenems and is resistant to P-lactamase inhibitors and a cephalosporinase that is susceptible to 1-lactamase inhibitors (3,23,24). A previous preliminary study by our group, as well as reports by other workers, have documented apparent increased susceptibility of X maltophilia strains to ticarcillin-clavulanate by disk diffusion and MIC methodology compared with susceptibility to ticarcillin, ampicillin, amoxicillin-clavulanate, ampicillin-sulbactam, piperacillin, and piperacillin-tazobactam (8, 19, 21 ampicillin, amoxicillin-clavulanate, amp...