A new test may help improve survival rates in patients with blood infections by speeding up diagnosis and treatment, a study published Wednesday found.
“Delays in appropriate antibiotic delivery have been shown to significantly impact patient survival rates, particularly among those with septic shock,” the authors wrote.
Sepsis occurs when the body’s immune system has a dangerous reaction to an infection. The body becomes extensively inflamed, which can cause tissue damage, organ failure, and even death. Because many infections can trigger sepsis, doctors need to identify which pathogens are present in a patient’s blood.
Typically, the process for identifying pathogens is “extremely slow,” the authors wrote. Part of the problem is the rapid antimicrobial susceptibility test (AST), a blood culture test that determines which antibiotic will kill the bacteria. This test takes a long time to yield results because only a limited number of bacteria can be extracted from the patient.
The AST can take up to three days to complete.
The research team enrolled 190 patients suspected of having an infection while hospitalized. Rather than solely relying on standard AST testing, the researchers performed new ultrarapid testing on these patients. The “ultrarapid AST” uses a synthetic beta-2-glycoprotein peptide, which helps capture and isolate pathogens from the blood.
The ultrarapid AST allows doctors to quickly identify what is affecting a patient with sepsis rather than wait for the results of the slower test.
The peptide, whose design is based on a protein molecule involved in immunity, can also assess the growth of pathogens within a patient over time, allowing doctors to monitor the progression of sepsis.
A Quicker Path to Treatment
The research team noted that “regardless of the extensive efforts being made towards rapid identification of pathogens and the provision of drug susceptibility information, prompt treatment of patients with sepsis continues to be a significant challenge.”The ultrarapid AST could enable doctors to begin treating patients more quickly and effectively by reducing the time it takes to identify blood pathogens. The research team wrote that doctors often administer antibiotics to a patient with sepsis while waiting for results from traditional ASTs without knowing which pathogens are present. As a result, 14 percent to 78 percent of antimicrobial drugs given to sepsis patients are unnecessary or ineffective.
“Inadequate prescriptions made during the initial treatment phase might jeopardize patient survival until a valid AST result is available,” the authors wrote.
“Recent studies have shown that patient mortality risk, length of hospital stay and medical costs can potentially be improved by reduction in [turnaround time],” they said.
Patients with sepsis are usually placed in the intensive care unit (ICU) and given antibiotics, intravenous fluids, and vasopressor medications to constrict the blood vessels. Surgery to remove any damaged tissue is sometimes necessary, as is other supportive care if a patient has sustained organ damage.
Copy
