Identification of microorganisms by a rapid PCR panel from positive blood cultures leads to faster optimal antimicrobial therapy – a before-after study

• Published in: BMC infectious diseases Vol. 23; no. 1; pp. 730 - 8
• Main Authors: Agnetti, Jessica, Büchler, Andrea C., Osthoff, Michael, Helfenstein, Fabrice, Weisser, Maja, Siegemund, Martin, Bassetti, Stefano, Bingisser, Roland, Schaefer, Dirk J., Clauss, Martin, Hinic, Vladimira, Tschudin-Sutter, Sarah, Bättig, Veronika, Khanna, Nina, Egli, Adrian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London BioMed Central 26.10.2023; BioMed Central Ltd; BMC
• Subjects: Adult; Anti-Bacterial Agents - therapeutic use; Anti-Infective Agents; Antibiotics; Antimicrobial agents; Antimicrobial stewardship; Bacteremia; Bacteremia - diagnosis; Bacteremia - drug therapy; BioFire FilmArray; Blood; Blood Culture; Canada; Care and treatment; Comparative analysis; Controlled Before-After Studies; Diagnosis; Dosage and administration; Hospitals; Humans; Identification; Infectious Diseases; Internal Medicine; Intra-abdominal infection; Medical examination; Medical Microbiology; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Methicillin; Microorganisms; Mortality; Neutropenia; Parasitology; Patients; PCR panel; Polymerase Chain Reaction; Retrospective Studies; Review boards; Sepsis; Statistical analysis; Statistical models; Testing; Therapy; Tropical Medicine; Urinary tract; Switzerland; Canada; France; PCR panel; Sepsis; Anti-infective agents; Antimicrobial stewardship; Blood culture; BioFire FilmArray
• ISSN: 1471-2334; 1471-2334
• DOI: 10.1186/s12879-023-08732-9

Background The BioFire® FilmArray® Blood Culture Identification Panel 1 (BF-FA-BCIP) detects microorganisms with high accuracy in positive blood cultures (BC) – a key step in the management of patients with suspected bacteraemia. We aimed to compare the time to optimal antimicrobial therapy (OAT) for the BF-FA-BCIP vs. standard culture-based identification. Methods In this retrospective single-centre study with a before-after design, 386 positive BC cases with identification by BF-FA-BCIP were compared to 414 controls with culture-based identification. The primary endpoint was the time from BC sampling to OAT. Secondary endpoints were time to effective therapy, length of stay, (re-)admission to ICU, in-hospital and 30-day mortality. Outcomes were assessed using Cox proportional hazard models and logistic regressions. Results Baseline characteristics of included adult inpatients were comparable. Main sources of bacteraemia were urinary tract and intra-abdominal infection (19.2% vs. 22.0% and 16.8% vs. 15.7%, for cases and controls, respectively). Median (95%CI) time to OAT was 25.5 (21.0–31.2) hours with BF-FA-BCIP compared to 45.7 (37.7–51.4) hours with culture-based identification. We observed no significant difference for secondary outcomes. Conclusions Rapid microorganism identification by BF-FA-BCIP was associated with a median 20-h earlier initiation of OAT in patients with positive BC. No impact on length of stay and mortality was noted. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT04156633, registered on November 5, 2019.