The Slow March toward Rapid Phenotypic Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing: Are We There Yet?

Area of Science:

• Clinical microbiology
• Infectious diseases
• Diagnostic technology

Background:

• Antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) is vital for guiding patient treatment of infections.
• Current gold standard AST methods rely on organism growth, necessitating lengthy incubation periods.
• Historically, developing rapid, growth-based phenotypic AST systems has faced significant challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide a historical context for efforts to accelerate phenotypic AST.
• To review the recently FDA-cleared Accelerate PhenoTest system.
• To briefly discuss emerging innovations in rapid phenotypic AST.

Main Methods:

• Historical review of phenotypic AST acceleration attempts.
• Contextualization of the Accelerate PhenoTest system within this history.
• Overview of new technologies for faster AST.

Main Results:

• The Accelerate PhenoTest represents a recent advancement in FDA-cleared phenotypic AST.
• Previous attempts to accelerate AST have shown limited success.
• Several new innovations show promise for reducing AST turnaround times.

Conclusions:

• Accelerating phenotypic AST is an ongoing challenge with critical clinical implications.
• The Accelerate PhenoTest and other emerging technologies offer potential solutions to reduce diagnostic delays.
• Further advancements are needed to consistently shorten the time to actionable susceptibility results.