Time to clinical response in sepsis associated with an algorithm for blood-culture pathogen identification using...

Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) can be aided by using rapid diagnostics (RDT). However, there are limited data evaluating the impact of ASPs and RDT on sepsis outcomes in the setting of the new Sepsis-3 guidelines. This study evaluates the impact of a low-resource method for ASPs with RDT on sepsis outcomes.

This was a prospective, quasi-experimental study with a retrospective double pretest. Patients ≥ 18 years old with sepsis and concurrent bacteremia or fungemia were included; patients who were pregnant, had polymicrobial septicemia or who were transferred from an outside hospital were excluded. In the first pretest (O1), polymerase chain reaction was used to identify Staphylococcal species from positive blood cultures, and traditional laboratory techniques were used to identify other species. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectroscopy and FilmArray were implemented in the second pretest (O2), and twice daily blood culture review was implemented in the posttest (O3).

A total of 394 patients (157 in O1, 176 in O2, 61 in O3) were enrolled. Clinical response was 73.2%, 83.5%, and 88.5% in O1, O2, and O3, respectively, p = 0.013. By Cox regression, the O3 was associated with improved time to clinical response (hazard ratio, 1.388; 95% confidence interval, 1.004-1.919) as compared with O1. Mortality, hospital length of stay, and intensive care unit length of stay were unchanged between groups.

Twice-daily blood culture review may be useful for implementing rapid diagnostics within low-resource ASPs. Further research is needed to identify the optimal method of blood culture follow-up within low-resource settings.