CIM City: The game continues for a better carbapenemase test.

The Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute and European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing agree that carbapenemase testing is not necessary for clinical care, provided the laboratory is up to date with current breakpoints. Nonetheless, publication on the development and modification of carbapenemase tests continues, as is the case in this issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology (R.W. Beresford and M. Maley, J Clin Microbiol, In press, 2019, doi: 10.1128/JCM.01852-18). This commentary explores modifications to the carbapenem inactivation method - but is this the right focus for clinical laboratories?