New Rapid Pathogen Species Diagnostic Test could help battle Antibiotic Resistance 

It was recently announced that the Longitude Prize 2014 will focus on the ability to “create a cost-effective, accurate, rapid and easy-to-use test for bacterial infections” to help combat the scourge of antibiotic resistant microbial infection, putting this critical and growing problem under the spotlight again. The AdvanDx QuickFISH test, exclusively available in the UK from Alpha Laboratories Ltd could provide a solution.

QuickFISH enables a targeted, species specific, antimicrobial therapeutic strategy to be employed much sooner, by enabling species ID to be reported at the same time as the gram stain result. This is especially helpful when dealing with microorganisms that share an identical morphology when viewed under gram stain.

Organisms with differing sensitivities that QuickFISH can distinguish include Staphylococci, gram negative rods, Enterococci and Candida. These organisms can often be the cause of life threatening blood infections and sepsis.

The rapid, easy-to-use QuickFISH assay can help deliver decreased use of broad spectrum antibiotics, reduced time to optimised antibiotic therapy, control of the spread of antimicrobial resistance, decreased length of hospital stays and lower healthcare costs. 

As the incidence of antibiotic resistance continues to increase, the supply of effective new antibiotics has all but dried up, decreasing treatment options for bacterial infections. Thus, clinicians face the challenge to ensure early, appropriate and effective antibiotic therapy for patients with critical infections, while avoiding the unnecessary use of broad-spectrum antimicrobials that can lead to increased antibiotic resistant bacteria.  

Currently accurate species identification can take up to 24-48 hours following positive culture identification. Often prescriptions are based on a quick gram stain (which can indicate the general direction of therapeutic intervention), pending a specific, positive species ID. However, this may still result in either the use of an inappropriate drug, or the undesirable use of a broad-spectrum antibiotic. QuickFISH offers a solution to help this growing medical problem.