045 - Molecular diagnosis of sepsis: technical and organizational experiences
Autor(s): A. Camporese
Issue: RIMeL - IJLaM, Vol. 4, N. 3-S1, 2008 (MAF Servizi srl ed.)
Page(s): 45-49
Early administration of appropriate empirical antibiotic treatment has repeatedly been associated with improved survival in patients with bacteremia. Therefore, an important task for the microbiological laboratory is to provide expedient reports on positive blood cultures that may guide antibiotic therapy in the shortest possible timeframe. It has been demonstrated that the odds of death increases 1.2-fold for each day until definitive identification is available. This and the improvement in antibiotic treatment on the basis of microbiological data underlie the potential benefit of applying rapid microbiological methods. A range of promising direct tests for rapid identification has been described in recent years. We explored the possibility of improving turnaround time of laboratory diagnosis of septicemic patients using a molecular approach. Our experience demonstrated that this approach, performed and interpreted by experienced technicians is expensive, but fast and highly accurate. Even if a sensitive molecular method cannot completely substitute for blood culture in the near future, our experience also suggests that molecular assays, as well as the reorganization of personnel, thus the workflow itself, can improve the response time and enable greater efficiency in diagnostic procedures, and may help in the development of new algorithms for the diagnosis of sepsis in critical patients